V 



y/f>, 




*Z^£<£ . 



&0t^£^C. — , 




t*s* %^-^ 






uT*0»«M»mo ^(Mt r HC rt»« M i(c, PutLiSMHtf. Ornct ft 



LECTUKES 



ON 



TEMPERANCE 



BY 



ELIPHALET NOTT, D. D., LL. D., 

PRESIDENT OF UNION COLLEGE. 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION, 



TAYLER LEWIS, M. D., 

PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN UNION COLLEGE. 
EDITED BY 

AMASA McCOY, 

» 
LATE EDITOR OF " THE PROHIBITIONIST." 



HAMILTON, C. W.: 
A. M. MOFFAT & CO. 

1858. 






/ 1> 3 % [. 



05 






£ 



PREFACE. 



The Temperance Reform long since engaged sufficient 
learning and talent in its advocacy to rescue it from con- 
tempt. This vast agitation, which for more than a third of 
a century has stirred the mind and the heart of society, has 
evolved a literature of its own, which is more than respect- 
able. Yet of the tens of thousands of speeches, sermons, 
addresses and lectures ; the editorial reports and prize 
essays ; the papers, tracts, pamphlets and volumes which 
this prolonged and arduous discussion has elicited, there 
are no productions on this subject which are marked with 
so much learning, eloquence and wisdom, as these eleven 
Lectures by President Xott. 

The mature fruits of the orator, who, at the age of 
thirty, pronounced a discourse on the death of Hamilton, 
which has made him famous for eloquence ever 1 since — the 
wise and efficient President, ever since that year (1804), of 
Union College — the beloved and honored preceptor of 
fifty -three successive classes of collegians, and now a patri- 
arch hardly less of Temperance than of education ; the 
mature fruits, of so gifted, so experienced, so profound, so 
sagacious an intellect ; the vivacity and fervor of the 
author's style ; the beautiful, truth-seeking spirit which 
marks his investigations, his tireless patience of research, 
his unfailing charity and candor to all opponents, his de- 
vout deference to the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, and 
last, but not least, his own great personal renown ; these 
circumstances unite to concentrate upon these Lectures a 
degree of interest and attention which is commanded by no 
other volume on this vast social reform ; a social reform, 
let it be added, which, more than all others combined, en- 



iv PKEFACE. 

grosses the thoughts and the feelings, the hopes and the 
fears, of this generation of men. 

Often as we had read these Lectures before, and always 
with admiration, instruction and delight, we rise from the 
more careful and critical perusal which is necessary to 
those who examine the proof sheets for the press, impressed 
with a deeper sense of their extraordinary merit, and a 
larger appreciation of their power for good over the minds 
of i ttliers. Our own experience would lead us to urge even 
veteran friends of Temperance — with whom it is a common 
mi-take, that to them no more reading on the subject is 
necessary — to study anew a volume which, beyond any 
other ever published, either in America or Great Britain, 
further towards exhausting and placing on an impreg- 
nable basis, the arguments in favor of Total Abstinence 
from all intoxicating liquors. 

Intemperance is not an evil of modern origin; nor is it 
the wise and good of this age alone who have addressed 
themselves to its cure. The physical and moral degrada- 
tion with which it has cursed the world is painfully foreshad- 
owed in the cases of Noah and Lot, as recorded in the 
Scriptures ; and the same solemn problem is speculated 
upon in the Republic of Plato. In the fourteenth chapter 
of the third book of that immortal work, and which the 
Bcholars of every age have ranked among the master-pieces 
of human wisdom, will be found the following sentence : 
" W e say, then, that they must alistn'in from drunkenness ." 

Such is one of the maxims which have been familiar in 
all ages. But it was reserved for our own age to discover 
and promulgate the momentous truth which had escaped 
all previous sages and philosophers, that "to abstain from 
drunkenness," and yet to continue to drink, is for society 
at large a simple impossibility. That to abstain from 
drunkenness, men must abstain from drink, that is, intoxi- 
cating drink'. These doctrines of Total Abstinence (the 
legislative prohibitions of the traffic, which follow as a 

al sequence, the author has not pretended to discuss) 

are the great themes of these Lectures by President Nott. 

iling himself of the labors of all who had written and 
spoken befow him, he has reduced all existing learning on 
the Bubjecl to a system, and with such clearness, beauty 

and power, that there is no other one volume in the whole 



PREFACE. V 

range of Temperance literature of such permanent and 
standard authority. And if Temperance, as here taught, 
will not raise man from earth to heaven, as Socrates 
claimed for his philosophy, it is no small matter — nay, in 
a nation with half a million of drunkards, it is a very great 
matter — if it will raise him from the gutter of the streets, 
and bring him within the influences of the house of pray- 
er ; and if, without being religion, it may thus be used to 
subserve the sublime and awful interests of religion, it 
should assuredly be urged upon the profound and attentive 
consideration of the pious and the good the country over. 

We say, "the pious and the good.'' For it is not to be 
disguised, that notwithstanding all the mighty things which 
have been done in the way of public enlightenment on this 
important subject, there are not only whole classes of so- 
ciety, otherwise well read and intelligent, who have either 
forgotten or else never known the fundamental principles 
of Temperance, but there are very many profound Chris- 
tians, many ministers of the gospel, who continue so far 
strangers to the ethics and the philosophy of the Temper- 
ance reform, that their own personal habits are still quoted 
against the suppression of the liquor traffic, and even the 
practice of Total Abstinence. 

Besides, a new generation has grown up even in Tem- 
perance families, to whom these important and vital truths 
have never been seriously and systematically addressed. 

The Prussians have a maxim, that whatever you would 
have appear in the life of a nation, you must put in its 
schools. The trustees of district schools, the teachers of 
Sabbath schools, and other guardians of the young, should 
be appealed to to put one or more copies of this volume in 
every school library in the land. 

The value of this volume is much enhanced by an 
able and elaborate introduction by Taylor Lewis, LL. D., 
Professor of the Greek Language and Literature in Union 
College — a man who is equally eminent as an acute, 
original thinker, and for his profound acquisition in classic- 
al and biblical learning. 

Professor Lewis has expressed especial admiration for 
the chart of Bible texts, in connection with wines, to be 
found in the appendix to the volume, and for which chart 
alone an eminent divine has said he would pay ten times 



VI PREFACE. 

the price of the whole work, rather than not have it in his 
possession. 

E. C. Pelavan,Es(|., the distinguished President of the 
New-York State Temperance Society, has written a letter, 
in which lie speaks in such terms as these of the Lectures 
of Dr. Nott : 

44 It is my belief that, in the proportion that this work is circulated 
ami read, the cause of Temperance will advance and be perpetuated. 

" I would urge all ministers of the gospel, all professing Christians, 
all heads of families, all organized Temperance societies, all instructors 
in institutions of learning, from the common school up to the university, 
to take immediate steps to give universal circulation to this work, 
called, by one of our most learned and benevolent citizens, ' the book 

OF BOOKS ON TEMPERANCE. 1 

,l Let me urge all, in every state, county, town, village and hamlet, 
whether on the shores of the Atlantic or of the Pacific, or the inter- 
vening space between the two (who desire the cause of Temperance to 
advance), to flood the publishers with orders. A million of copies of 
these Lectures should be sold in this nation. If the work is successful in 
the English language, it will be published in the German and other 
languages, so that our fellow citizens from all nations and of all 
languages can have the benefit of the great and important truths con- 
tained in this volume." 

Such is the estimation in which this work is justly held 
by the most eminent philanthropists of our country. The 
publishers have undertaken to present it to the public in a 
form that must be attractive, and at a price to bring it 
within the reach of all, and to make it convenient for asso- 
ciations of the friends of the cause to give it a wide circu- 
lation. It ought to find a ready entrance into every house 
in this and other lands. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The following Lectures produced a very marked 
effect at the time they were delivered, and few works, 
it may fairly be believed, have done more to place the 
cause of temperance on elevated, rational and Scrip- 
tural grounds. The entire absence of what some are 
pleased to call fanaticism, or of anything that could 
by any possibility be brought under that odious and 
much abused name, the transparent candor, the 
cogency as well as clearness of argument, the patience 
of examination, the deference to the Scriptures, and 
at the same time that spirit of fairness which would 
oppose their being wrested even to serve what might 
be deemed the best interests of humanity, — add to 
these the learning, without pedantry, the science, 
without pretence, the calm, sound reasoning, without 
the imposing show of argumentation, and we have 
the leading characteristics that must be conceded to 
the work by every intelligent and fair minded reader, 
whatever may be his opinion on the final merits of 
the questions that have called it forth. If we allude 
to the noble style of the writer, — that easy and vig- 
orous command of language which marked his earliest 
widely spread productions, rendered still more attrac- 



X INTRODUCTION. 

the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend* 11 
"My brother! " Here is the soul of the argument, 
worth ten thousand rules, per se. My brother ! my 
weak brother ! my poor, vicious, lost, ruined brothers! 
brothers to me in Adam, and who may yet be brothers 
to me in Christ! I will abstain, for their sakes,from 
anything, from everything whose use in me might 
peril their souls, or even tempt to ways destructive 
of the poor measure of earthly good they might 
otherwise enjoy in this stage of discipline and pro- 
bation. Logically, it may be summed in a sentence: 
May there be circumstances in which the higher 
Christian morality, the true transcendental ethics, 
would require a man to abstain from "meat" for the 
sake of others, how much stronger the argument now 
to abstain from intoxicating drinks on this principle 
alone, without any perplexing, ever irresolvable logo- 
machies about "rights" or wrongs per se. Translate 
the Apostles' language, not the words simply, into a 
modern vocabulary, put the soul of the language into 
the corresponding thoughts that come out of the 
modern social condition, and we have the argument, 
a fortiori and a fortissimo , for entire abstinence from 
all those substances, whether old or new, whether 
simple or combined, that are now producing such 
appalling desolation in our modern world. 

This argument is perfect. It needs no logical for- 
mulas ; for the sane mind, the sound mind, the 
spiritual mind, bows down before it upon the first 
simple presentment of its two premises, Christian 
love and a ruined humanity. He who is truly tern- 



INTRODUCTION. XI 

perate, truly sober, truly tfw^pwv, whether in the New 
Testament or classical usage of that beautiful word, 
acknowledges at once its conclusive power. Even on 
the lower scale of a purely secular ethics, and for minds 
that will ascend to no higher region, it is unanswer- 
able. What need then, it may be said, of anything 
more? Why should not temperance men be satisfied 
with it, instead of trying to show more specific pro- 
hibitions, or looking for more literal condemnations 
of specific acts or substances, per se? Why not be 
content with the noble moral argument whose immu- 
table spirit is the same for all ages, and capable of 
prompt and conclusive application to the prevalent 
vice or vices of any age ? They are satisfied with it, 
we answer, at least all reasonable friends of temper- 
ance, all who wish to place the temperance cause 
upon its highest ground, all who would make it a 
matter of principle, as the New Testament does, 
instead of such a mere arbitrary asceticism or super- 
stition as is taught in the Koran. They are satisfied 
with this positive, clear, unanswerable, Scriptural 
argument for total abstinence from certain things in 
certain well ascertained conditions of society and the 
world. They are content, we say; but it is their 
adversaries who are not satisfied. These are the men 
who are for pressing the Bible into specific rules, 
regulative of the outward thing instead of the inward 
principle. They are the men who strive hard to 
extract from the Scriptures, not so much specific con- 
demnations as specific commendations of what is 
known to be evil. They are the per se logicians. 



Xll INTRODUCTION. 

They would make out a rights per se 9 very much like 
the sin per se of others who would seem to be on the 
opposite extreme, and yet do actually harmonize 
with them in the spirit and principle of their 
reasoning. 

Such is the condition into which perversity of feel- 
ing, rather than any logical demand of the intellect, 
brings the reasoning on this question, and hence the 
necessity, on the other side, of the second Scriptural 
argument, or the one we have styled the defensive. 
It is to wrest this weapon from their hands. It is to 
show that while the higher moral reasoning needs 
not the aid of specific denunciations of particular 
substances, as evil in themselves, or irrespective of 
their moral effects, so neither, on the other hand, 
must the adversary be allowed, without resistance, 
to maintain that any such substance is a good in 
itself^ or declared in Scripture to be such, in any sense 
that would not allow or even demand a total absti- 
nence from it in a given social state. 

The temperance advocate takes issue on this ground. 
He denies that wine, the intoxicating wine of almost 
universal modern use, is pronounced a blessing in the 
Scriptures, and that, therefore, abstinence from it, 
total abstinence, is either a contempt or a denial of 
a good gift of God. 

Such is substantially the position taken by Dr. 
Nott in these Lectures. The per se ultraists on both 
sides are avoided. It is a calm, dignified, learned, 
and we think, in the main, successful argument, to 
show that the Bible condemns the use of certain 



INTRODUCTION. XU1 

substances, not per se, not from any qualities requiring 
the aid of science to ascertain them as such, not from 
ay known or unknown chemical measure of alcohol, 
but because, according to the knowledge of the day, 
they were intoxicating, and therefore had an immoral 
influence. The physical or scientific causes may have 
been, in that age, very imperfectly known, as they 
are now very imperfectly known. But such a view 
does not detract at all from the reverence due to the 
real inspiration. It does not at all diminish — to a 
right thinking mind it even enhances — the moral 
power. There may have been, on the part of these 
inspired men, ignorance, even error, as to the nature 
of substances they approve, as well as of substanceh 
they condemn. The Infinite in knowledge might 
have made a supernatural advance in their science, 
but it would still, as science, have been imperfect) 
still the vehicle of error, still therefore the ground of 
cavil. It would have removed no real difficulty; it 
might, it probably would, have created others still 
greater. But they had a higher mission. They 
were inspired to denounce a specific psychological 
or moral state supposed to be produced by certain 
causes. The state was known; the causation was 
imperfectly understood, even as it is yet imperfectly 
understood ; for when we say imperfectly, it is simply 
saying there is something more, and still something 
more, and that indefinitely, to be discovered about it. 
Liebig is farther on, but, in one sense, he is no 
nearer the perfect end of these things, even of these 
physical things, than Solomon, the wisest of Jewish 



XIV INTRODUCTION. 

naturalists. The bare statement of the thought is 
sufficient to show that an exact scientific revelation 
of the chemical components productive of such a 
psychological or moral state, would be at variance 
with the whole known manner in which the Infinite 
has chosen to- communicate with the finite mind. It 
might be maintained, moreover — we say it with all 
reverent reserve of any a priori speculations as to 
the reasons or modes of the Divine teaching — that 
such a scientific method of revelation would have 
defeated the great end for which a revelation is made, 
and is alone worthy to be made. If would have had 
a tendency to increase that which is now the great 
evil of our fallen condition, — to make the physical 
predominant to the obscuration of the moral, — to give 
power and knowledge, especially natural knowledge, a 
higher place in our souls than grace and goodness. 
Even in the ethical region, it would have given 
prominence to the ascetic, and the aesthetic, instead 
of the higher spiritual. It would have had a ten- 
dency to make men content with the letter, and thus, 
perhaps, as has often been exemplified in our way- 
ward human history, have led them to every kind of 
device to substitute a false and carnal for a true and 
spiritual obedience. It would, in short, have led the 
mind to rest in facts, the exact knowledge of which 
varies with the ever changing science of different 
ages, instead of that moral fact which was as perfect 
and as clear to Jeremiah as it is now to Faraday. 
The moral fact in this ca the state of soul we 

call intoxication. The ancients knew it as well as 



INTRODUCTION. XV 

we, although our experimental evidence is so much 
more abundant. Holy men of old were inspired to 
denounce this evil. The Inspiring power used their 
thoughts, their language, their knowledge, as the me- 
dium through which to give the denunciation clear- 
ness, force and impressiveness. It was the outward 
knowledge of their day, perfect as to the effect, or 
thing denounced, imperfect as to the causation. The 
same Divine power filled them with a vehement feel- 
ing against this state denounced. Under the influence 
of this feeling thus imbreathed, this thought thus 
divinely given, and under the special guidance, too, 
of the eternal wisdom whence it came, they used the 
language of their day in the condemnation of sub- 
stances best known as the producers of the psyco- 
logical condition which was the real, the unchange- 
able evil per se. It was intoxication ; not intoxication 
to excess, but intoxication in any degree; intoxication 
sought as intoxication simply, be it more or less. It 
was the act of a person in health using certain sub- 
stances, not as medical remedies (more or less imper- 
fectly known as the antidotes to an already deranged 
condition of the system), not for any nutritive, 
strengthening or restorative qualities, but solely for 
producing that evil state called intoxication, evil, 
not as excess, but in any, even the least or incipient 
degrees, — evil in effect, evil in motive, evil per se. 
It was the act of a person in health deranging his 
spiritual nature and putting it in a false state, dis- 
turbing the organs or faculties of thought, imparting 
an unnatural impulse to the passions, quickening the 



XVI INTRODUCTION. 

e^pogj or excitable part of our nature, not in the way- 
its Maker designed it, as an auxiliary to the rational 
and moral action, but for its own pleasurable emo- 
tion; thus, in a word, running the risk of giving 
the sensual the predominance over the spiritual 
powers of our being. This was intoxication ; a 
spiritual fact. A Hebrew prophet, we repeat, could 
know it as well as the most scientific of modern 
chemists or modern anatomists. It was evil — evil 
altogether; that which was sought, that which was 
desired for the purpose of producing it, that sub- 
stance in which this, as a known or supposed effect, 
was the chief ingredient of value — that was evil also. 
It was evil, not so much from any chemical consti- 
tution, but because it was so sought and for such an 
end. Now to denounce the state without bringing 
in the supposed cause — the substance that quickened 
the evil motive, and was in turn called into demand 
by it — would have been beating the air. Intoxica- 
tion was evil, and so were things that would intoxi- 
cate, especially as sought for that purpose. In 
speaking of it, therefore, as a thing wrong — always 
wrong as thus desired — he must use the language 
best understood by the men of his age, and which 
might be taken as the representative of the same 
unchanging truth amid all the changing science of 
after ages. 

Here is the ground for the argument brought out 
in these Lectures. Wine is commended in some 
places as a blessing. This cannot be for any intoxi- 
cating effect, even in the slightest degree, but for the 



INTRODUCTION. XV11 

good it does, its known effects as healthful, pleasant, 
nutritive, restorative, non-intoxicating. It might be 
used to excess, as bread or honey might be eaten in 
excess, but such was not, such could not be, the 
common tendency of anything thus declared to be a 
blessing. Even a tendency to excess, simply as 
excess, must make a thing an evil (if such tendency 
belongs to the very essential working instead of being 
a mere accident, as in bread and honey and other 
substances commonly regarded as innocent) ; but in 
the thing denounced, there is clearly an evil distinct 
from that of excess, as will be seen in its proper 
place. So the good substance, the good wine, might 
become changed ; it might be suffered to get into a 
perverted state, and in this changed state produce 
intoxication; but such was not, could not have been 
the state on which the benediction w r as pronounced. 
Neither could such have been any usual condition of 
the thing commended, for then it would not have 
been ranked with those other substances, " corn and 
oil," which, whilst they agree with it in its nutritive, 
healthful, in a word, blessed properties, would not 
have so wholly differed from it in this peculiarly and 
essentially evil effect. 

And so, again, wine (sometimes under this generic 
name and sometimes under others) is condemned, 
not as something merely which might be used in 
excess ; for there are other undisputed blessings that 
might also be thus used in excess, but which are not 
thus condemned in terms of evil attached to the very 
substances themselves. This is a distinction which 



XVlll INTRODUCTION. 

is deemed to be one of much importance. A man 
might eat to excess, and gluttony is condemned, but 
bread is never called a "mocker;" no man is ever 
denounced for putting the loaf to his neighbor's 
mouth. One might cloy himself with honey; such 
excess, as excess, might be reproached as sensuality ; 
but honey, though so sweet and tempting, is nowhere 
spoken of as something which it was dangerous for 
a man even to look upon, as an evil thing whose very 
nature it was to bite like a serpent and sting like an 
adder. These substances are nowhere spoken of in 
terms of severe condemnation, directed immediately 
against the things themselves, and wuthout the accom- 
paniment of any qualifying terms connected with 
such mere excess. 

But there is a wine thus spoken of, condemned* for 
an evil which is not merely that of excess. It must 
have been a substance known or supposed to produce 
intoxication ; that unnatural thing which is evil in 
every degree. It was different from the healthful and 
nutritive substance ; and the grand moral distinction 
was, that it was sought for a different purpose. It might 
not always be perfectly easy to draw the physical 
line between them, in consequence of the tendency 
of the healthful to degenerate into the injurious and 
the intoxicating. It may be a long time yet before 
science settles exactly where that line is, if she ever 
does exactly settle it. In modern as well as in ancient 
times, practical moral results furnish better rules 
than any chemical tests. It was not anciently, as it 
is not even now, a question of alcohol as determined 



INTRODUCTION. XIX 

by grains, but a higher question, a question of intoxi- 
cation, as an admitted evil state. The wine that did 
not intoxicate, and was not used to intoxicate, or 
sought to intoxicate, was good ; a, blessing was in it. 
The wine that did intoxicate, and was sought for that 
purpose, was bad; it was pronounced a woe and 
a curse. 

Such is the moral truth, the moral statement. 
Now in what language is this revealed to us in the 
Bible ? It is answered : in a peculiar language, 
growing out of the peculiar nature of the subject 
matter. The good and the evil substances are both 
entitled logically to the generic name of wine, from 
the obvious fact of their common unadulterated origin 
in the juice of the grape. Such, then, would occa- 
sionally be the name given to both, especially when 
precision of terms is unnecessary from the fact that 
the context clearly shows which effect, as character- 
istic of the respective kinds, was chiefly in view. 
Still, if there was a wide difference in such effects, 
marked* by almost invariable characteristics, — if one 
produced only evil, whilst the other was in the main 
productive of good, — if they were sought for directly differ- 
ent purposes, the one for its intoxicating, the other for 
its nutritive and restoring qualities, — if the one was 
regarded by the virtuous as best, in its pure, 
unchanged state, whilst the other, as is the law of 
all things evil, kept ever calling for an increase of 
the characteristic evil quality, and so became con- 
tinually more and more deleterious in its effects, — 
then there would arise, in time, an adaptation of 



XX INTRODUCTION. 

language mare specific in its terms, growing wider 
in its distinctive differences, and aiming to describe 
these two substances by their varying fruits, rather 
than by that generic union of origin which is the 
common ground of naming in the infancy or first 
stages of human speech. And such, on opening the 
Bible, we find to be actually the case. Such is the 
law of naming and derivation. The history of the 
thing, the rising and divergency of the evil appears in 
the words to which it gives rise ; it is seen in the more 
sparing use of the old generalization and the more 
frequent employment of specific or descriptive epi- 
thets. The state of the Hebrew language corresponds 
well with what w T e would, a priori, expect it to be on 
such a theory. Both kinds of wines are occasionally 
described by the same generic appellation, yayin; 
but in other and numerous cases, each gets to itself 
its own peculiar name, more closely associated with 
its peculiar good or evil (that is, its nutritive or 
intoxicating effect), and the opposite purposes for 
which they are respectively sought ; so that when 
the one is mentioned, there is no need of any quali- 
fying language to show the reason either of the 
benediction or of the condemnation. 

All need of dwelling farther on this, then, is saved 
by the admirable manner in which the whole subject 
is presented in the chart of texts to be found in 
the appendix. If the reader has any candor, the 
effect upon his mind must be most striking. The 
general term is yayin; the name almost always used 
with approbation, aaid sometimes with blessing, is 






INTRODUCTION. Xxi 

tirosh, or the new unintoxicating wine or juice of the 
grape. There is, in fact, but one exception, Hosea, 
iv., 1, and there it will be seen, that in reference to 
the main, w r e may say, the only point in this argu- 
ment, or the matter of intoxication, it is only a 
seeming exception. Let the reader look carefully at 
the context, and he must see, from the connection 
of tirosh with the other indulgences there mentioned, 
that it is simply the excessive or surfeiting enjoy- 
ments there condemned, rather than any directly 
intoxicating or immediate soul changing quality, 
which is the evil element in the species elsewhere so 
unequivocally reprobated. 

Other descriptive names are used for the good 
wine, but this is predominant — so predominant we 
say, and so marked in the context for its innocent, 
non-intoxicating qualities, that any one who would 
cite these benedictions of tirosh as real commenda- 
tions of the intoxicating drink sought by the ancient 
drunkards, shows himself greatly wanting both in 
Bible knowledge, and a proper reverence for the 
Holy Scriptures. If any one is disposed to go still 
farther, and quote them in defence of the vile com- 
pounds of modern times, we will not attempt to 
characterize either his learning or morality. 

The reader will notice in this synoptical chart 
some other terms of the later Hebrew, used for the 
same purpose as tirosh, but they are mostly descrip- 
tive, and expressive of a mild, innocent, non-intoxi- 
cating state of the vinous fluid. For the evil or 
intoxicating wine, the most common word is yayin. 



XX11 INTRODUCTION. 

Why should it take to itself so frequently this old 
name, thus driving the better and the unchanged 
substance to the use of a new and more descriptive 
epithet? The reason will be seen by a little careful 
attention to the usual course of things. In this world 
evil predominates. Language, like all things else, 
shares in the human degeneracy. Words follow the 
stream of the human depravity. It is thus that the 
evil thing usurps the generic or family title. On 
this account, in cases where yayin is employed of the 
innocent beverage, or the simple unintoxicating 
juice of the grape, it is usually accompanied by 
such a context as leaves no doubt of its meaning. 

So, also, the use of the bad wine tends to multi- 
plicity of epithet. The Anacreontic spirit seeks 
diversity in song. The pure love of intoxication per 
se as something different from restoring aliment or 
even the excess of cloying indulgence, demands new 
terms corresponding to its own ever growing strength. 
Hence such words as sobhe, the wine that is sipped, or 
supped — its etymology being visible almost all the 
way clown our Saxon or Celtic stream — the meseJc, the 
drugged wine, mixed with hot and spicy ingredients — 
the shecar, or strong drink, synonymous with drunken- 
ness itself. All these most graphically mark the 
descent from the commencing divergence of the 
barely intoxicating yayin, down to those lower and 
still lower degrees into which it is the nature of all 
evil, once born, to be ever plunging. That surely 
must be an evil, per sc, to whose very essence it per- 
tains to breed a deeper and still deeper evil. This 



INTRODUCTION. XXU1 

evil is infused into the wine when it first begins to 
have its intoxicating quality. Chemists may settle 
that scientifically, if they can, from the degree of alco- 
hol, but the practical test is the one for the moralist. 
That which intoxicates is evil, evil in the slightest 
degree of its effect ; and the reason is, that such 
slightest degree of intoxication ever demands, not 
the same repeated simply (though that would be an 
evil), but a stronger and still stronger intoxica- 
tion. This is the stone that Sisyphus is ever con- 
demned to roll. The appetite calls for a stronger 
stimulant ; the want invents a stronger substance, 
and this demands a new and stronger word. It is the 
hot mixed wine, the wine that giveth its color in the 
cup, that sparkles like the serpent's eye and stingeth 
ike the adder's fang — it is the poisoned mcseJc, the 
potent shecar — these are the new ideas and the 
new terms, showing that they are the perversions, 
the adulterations, the poisonous changes of something 
which in its original state would not intoxicate and 
would not, therefore, be sought by the drunkard. 

Now it may be said, perhaps, that there area few 
cases, a very few r , in which some of these names for 
the intoxicating wine are used w 7 ith language seeming 
to imply approbation. But let the reader carefully 
examine that correct and valuable chart. He will 
see that such cases are unmistakably marked as medi- 
cinal. There were cases where an overpowering 
depression of body and soul might be relieved by 
stimulating wine ; cases perhaps, of urgent necessity, 
before other and slower remedies could be applied, 



XXIV INTRODUCTION. 

So "strong drink might be given to him who was 
ready to perish." How strongly — if a man will but 
think — does the apparent exception prove the general 
moral prohibition of such substances. These cases 
but confirm the sober principle of interpretation that 
runs through these Lectures. The general position 
may again be stated under two aspects. The good 
wine might be used to excess, but it was the excess 
of surfeiting, not of intoxication ; it was incidental, 
not entering into the very essence ; it belonged to the 
misuse, not to every use of the substance employed. 
So, on the other hand, the intoxicating wine might 
be used for beneficent purposes, but it was in those 
same states of an already deranged spiritual or phy- 
sical condition which demand other toxical or medi- 
cinal remedies — such being in their nature mainly 
poisons ; that is, poisons for the healthy diathesis, and 
only to be taken as temporary antidotes to other still 
more malignant and deranging influences. 

Such is the substantial outline of the argument in 
these Lectures. We have not made any close exami- 
nation to see if there might not be some errors in 
the classical or Scriptural references. It is enough 
that the main positions are sober, cautious, well 
reasoned, impregnable. There are doubtless readers 
who will be dissatisfied. Per se ultraists on both sides 
may condemn the work as falling short. But their 
real quarrel is with the rational Bible method rather 
than the fair and candid manner in which it is brought 
out. Those who would make it a question of chem- 
istry rather than of morals, may feel a secret disap- 



INTRODUCTION. XXV 

pointment. Even though they do not venture out- 
wardly to complain, yet is there an inward vexation, 
perhaps, because the Bible has not been as explicit 
on some of these points as could have been wished, 
or as their favorite theory might demand. Why could 
not the Scriptures have always called the bad wine 
yayin and the good wine tirosh, so that there could be 
no possible mistake about the meaning and its appli- 
cation in every case ? Why could not revelation 
have told us how much alcohol is in the one, and 
whether or no there is but little alcohol or no alcohol 
at all in the other? But to all such uneasy querists 
the fair answer is already given. This is not the way 
in which the Infinite communicates himself to the 
finite mind. It employs not the language of science ; 
for it is ever changing, ever imperfect, that is, ever 
unfinished. It does not make use of its facts or 
statements as such ; for they remain not the same 
from age to age. If it employs them at all, it is only 
as entering into the common mind, and as having thus 
become the representatives of universal thought. 
We would say it with reverence and diffidence : 
Scripture may even be regarded as avoiding marked 
precision of language or departure from the common 
speech, if by such niceties of terms, or such prefer- 
ence of the special and technical, the mind wc J 
be led to dwell on the outward and the physio 
the neglect of the great moral idea. 

And yet even the language of the Bible, as dis- 
tinct from its ideas, must have been an object of the 
Divine care. It is a book ever suggestive. Its holy 



XXVI INTRODUCTION. 

texts are ever expanding to a higher and a wider 
meaning ; but it is only for those who have eyes to 
see and ears to hear. They who seek for stumbling- 
blocks may find them in abundance ; but still it 
remains true as ever, that " wisdom's ways are plain 
to him that understandeth, and right to them that 
find knowledge/' That Scriptural simplicity of enun- 
ciation, which has the greatest charm for all who love 
the Bible most, furnishes the chief occasion for the 
caviler. It is perhaps impossible always to refute 
him logically. And so it may be that in this respect 
the present Lectures may fail to meet the views of 
extremists on either side ; but we have little doubt 
of their securing everywhere a favorable and grate- 
ful hearing from the sincere friends of humanity and 
the candid and intelligent lovers of Divine truth. 



CONTENTS, 



Prefatory Letter, by the Editor, 3 

Introduction, by Prof. Tayler Lewis, .......... 7 

LECTURE No. I. 

PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 

Preliminary remarks — The question at issue stated — Testimony of 
Moses, Solomon and Pliny — Other testimony in Scotland — In 
America — The number of drunkards in this republic — The 
remedy intimated — No alternative — We must change our social 
usage, or meet the expense of their maintenance — What intoxi- 
cating liquors cost Great Britain annually — What those who 
purchase liquors pay their money for, 31 

LECTURE No. II. 

THE REMEDY. 

Intoxicating liquors useful, but not as a beverage in health — Those 
who use intoxicating liquors, and live to be old, live not in conse- 
quence, but in spite of drinking — Intoxicating liquors analogous 
to exhilarating gas — The number of deaths by the use of in- 
toxicating liquors very great — The waste of life by intoxicating 
liquors supplied from the ranks of temperate drinkers — Delete- 
rious effects of distilled liquors, of beer and of bad wine, ... 59 



XXV111 CONTEXTS. 

LECTURE No. III. 

THE BIBLE. 

The kind of wine in question — The authority of Scripture — Wine 
of different kinds, good and bad — Spoken of by sacred writers — 
Grape juice called wine — Good wine — Better than after fermenta- 
tion — If not wine, but grape juice out of which wine is made, 
and called wine figuratively,,, then is wine not commended, but 
grape juice merely — The wine of the press and vat in Palestine 
slightly fermented — What is meant by unfermented wine as here 
used, 80 

LECTURE No. IV. 

INQUIRY EXTENDED TO PROFANE WRITERS. 

The wine question continued — Grape juice spoken of as a beverage 
by profane writers — Called wine — Pronounced good wine — Bet- 
ter before than after fermentation — The formation of alcohol in- 
tentionally prevented by arresting fermentation — Dissipated when 
formed by the filter, or counteracted by dilution — The question at 
issue a question of degree, not of totality — The question of sin 
per se considered — Perfect purity not attainable — Wine placed 
on the same footing as other articles of food, ...... 123 

LECTURE No. V. 

WINE — ITS SACRAMENTAL USE. 

The wine made use of at the Paschal Supper, at the wedding at Gana 
of Galilee — And the wine recommended to Timothy, . . . 161 

LECTURE No. VI. 

THINGS, NOT NAMES. 

How wines called by the same name can be distinguished — Absti- 
nence from wine urged on the ground of expediency, . . 178 



CONTENTS. XXIX 

LECTURE No. VII. 

ADULTERATIONS. 

The adulteration of the wines of commerce — Drunkenness and glut- 
tony compared — Analogy between bad oil, bad milk, and bad 
wine — An appeal to Patriots and Christians, 200 

LECTURE No. VIII. 

MORAL AND NATURAL LAWS AS APPLIED TO STRONG DRINK. 

Books of Revelation and Nature — Misery springs from violations of 
law — Nature interrogated — Her answer returned — In crime, 
disease and death — Spontaneous combustion — Distinction between 
stimulants and aliments — Example of moderate drinkers more in- 
jurious than of drunkards — Iniquities of fathers visited on chil- 
dren — Expostulation with moderate drinkers, 222 

LECTURE Xo. IX. 

MORAL AND NATURAL LAWS AS APPLIED TO STRONG DRINK. 

Nature still farther interrogated — Another page turned — The re- 
sponse in the structure of creation and the orderings of Provi- 
dence — Man made for temperance and chastity — Excess fatal — 
The intrepid engineer — The voice of Nature, the voice of God — 
His disapprobation of intoxicating liquors stamped on the whole 
human organism — Especially the human stomach — Explanation 
of the drawings of Doct. Sewal — The maniac, 244 

LECTURE X^o. X. 

THE TRAFFIC APPEAL TO DEALERS. 

The injurious effect of abandoning the liquor trade considered — The 
expedient of total abstinence — The manner in which it should be 
enforced — An appeal to dealers, 268 



XXX CONTENTS. 

LECTURE No. XL 

RECAPITULATION — GENERAL APPEAL IN BEHALF OF TEM- 
PERANCE. 

Appeal to Parents — To Youth — To Women — Conclusion, . . 295 



Appendix, 313 

Letter from Mr. Delavan to Gov. King, 327 

Adulteration of liquors, 341 

Bishop Potter's Address on the Drinking Usages of Society, . 345 

Use and Abuse of Alcoholic Drinks, in Health and Disease, 

by Wm. B. Carpenter, 366 



LECTURE No. I. 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 

Prfliminary remarks — The question at issue stated — Testimony of 
Moses, Solomon and Pliny — Other testimony in Scotland — In 
America — The number of drunkards in this republic — The 
remedy intimated — No alternative — We must change our social 
usage, or meet the expense of their maintenance — What intoxi- 
cating liquors cost Great Britain annually — What those who 
purchase liquors pay their money for. 

It is now some eighteen centuries since the temper- 
ance question was argued in Palestine, by a prisoner 
in bonds, before a Eoman Governor. It has often 
since been argued ; seldom, however, it is believed, 
with the same effect, and perhaps as seldom in the 
same spirit. Saul of Tarsus was scarcely less re- 
markable for his courtesy of manner than for his 
fixedness of purpose. 

Mere dictation, as well as stern rebuke, comes with 
an ill grace, even among friends, from those, believed 
to be at least, as weak and erring as ourselves ; 
whereas there is always a charm in meekness, and 
the persuasive accent of unaffected kindness seldom 
falls powerless, even on a stranger's ear. Whether 
the friends of Temperance, I mean its most active 

NoTT. 



32 LEC. NO. 1 PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 

friends, may not have lost something of their influence 
over the public mind by the advocacy of even their 
noble cause, in a manner too stern, and with a spirit 
too uncompromising, is a question which at the pre- 
sent time may well deserve consideration. 

Even truth bears lightly on minds exasperated by a 
sense of injury; and conviction is slow to reach 
bosoms rankling with resentment, and before which 
prejudice has flung her broad and impenetrable shield. 

Although we neither use, nor abet the use, even 
the moderate use, of intoxicating liquor, in any of its 
forms, as a beverage, still we do not know, and dare 
not therefore affirm, that they who do so use it, in 
some of them, are, on that account, greater sinners 
than other men. And even though they were, they 
are still our brethren : and we have no desire, during 
this season of divine forbearance, to sunder those 
bonds which have hitherto united us. On the con- 
trary, we wish hereafter, as heretofore, to maintain 
a free and fraternal intercourse with them ; to hear 
their arguments, and in our turn to address to them 
our own. We think that truth is on our side ; and 
ifit be so, our opponents may hereafter be convinced ; 
and we trust in God they will hereafter be convinced 
— an additional reason why we are unwilling, by any 
indiscretion of ours, to alienate their feelings, and 
thus weaken the hold we might otherwise have on 
their reason and their conscience. 

It is well to learn wisdom from the past. Years 
have now gone by, since 1 first became acquainted 
with the late Rev. Dr. Hoosack, of Johnson, now 



DOCT. HOOSACK. 33 

gone to his rest. During a journey, taken with him 
soon after our acquaintance commenced, I observed 
that he used a little brandy and water with his dinner, 
to aid digestion ; and took a small glass of bitters 
before breakfast to ensure an appetite ; and though 
much younger than himself, I ventured to question 
the propriety of such a practice. He heard me 
patiently, and answered me playfully, as his manner 
was— " Your logic tells me one thing, my experience 
another, and in the absence of other evidence I shall 
continue my former practice; " and he did continue 
his former practice. We often afterwards met, and 
discussed the matter ; but though the one drank spirits 
and the other water, we always met and j>arted in 
friendship. At length a public discussion of the 
whole question took place, at which both of us were 
present, when I was as delighted as surprised to find 
that my old friend Hoosack had come over to our side, 
" I continued," said he, giving a reasonjbr his change 
of opinion, " I continued to drink intoxicating liquor, 

without apprehension, until I saw and — — and 

(naming three distinguished individuals) become 

intemperate, when thought I, if such men can not, 
as life advances, withstand its growing influence, it 
is time for me to abjure its use." 

And he did abjure its use ; thereafter giving the 
whole weight of his influence to the cause of tempe- 
rance, till full of years and honored by the churches, 
he left the world without a blot upon his character. 
His was a noble independence. I honored him for it, 
and I still honor him for it. My poor argument did 



34 ALCOHOL ACCOUNTED NEEDFUL. 

not convince him ; the providence of God, however, 
did; and when light broke upon his mind he did 
homage to the truth. 

But, in relation to the question now before us, 
what is truth? That some people lean to the one 
opinion, and some to the other, decides nothing. For 
though truth will ultimately prevail over error, the 
struggle may be violent and of long continuance. 
Saul of Tarsus is not the only individual, who, when 
erring grievously, has thought he was doing God 
service. 

In some countries, when friends fall out, they are 
required by the laws of honor, to kill each other. 
In other countries each is required, by the same laws, 
to kill himself. 

The time was, when our fathers owned slaves, and 
even, without compunction, engaged in the slave 
trade. Now the thought of this fills us with amaze- 
ment: so the time was when rum and gin and brandy 
and whiskey, and that whole legion of alcoholic mix- 
tures, were not only tolerated, but also held in esti- 
mation by the wise and good, as well as the ignor- 
ant and vile. 

Then alcohol in some form was accounted needful 
to the doctor in compounding his medicine, to the 
lawyer in making out his brief, to the parson in 
composing his sermon — aye, and in its delivery too. 
While in every place of concourse, — at the. house of 
feasting, at the house of mourning, — this spirit- 
stirring element seemed to be considered the one 
thing needful. To say nothing of gala days and 



PRACTICE IN THE CITY OF ALBANY. 35 

weddings, not a christening could be performed, or 
even a funeral solemnized, among large and respect- 
able classes of community, without this indispensable 
accompaniment. And the man of fortune who should 
have neglected to provide it, in anticipation, for his 
burial, would, in many a place, have been accounted, 
if not a denier of the faith, at least, less provident 
than an infidel. 

Even in the exemplary and church-going city of 
Albany, the time was — I remember it well — when 
pastors and people vied with each other in the 
production of the best cherry, and raspberry, and 
strawberry brandy ; as well as sundry other quite 
orthodox alcoholic mixtures, to be served occasionally, 
not only to company, but to be administered also to 
the smaller children as a vermifuge, and to the larger 
ones as a stomachic. While some there were — nay, 
many there were — and good men too, who, as a 
preparation for their nightly rest, as regularly took 
their whiskey punch, as they offered up their devo- 
tions. Indeed, if the moderate, and especially the 
occasional, use of intoxicating liquor, in some of its 
forms, is to exclude from our charity and fellowship, 
'it will be difficult to find, even among our own 
members, executioners, without sin, to cast at their 
offending neighbor the first stone. 

Now, notwithstanding this diversity of opinion and 
practice, all of us wish to live as long, and to enjoy, 
while we do live, as much as possible. 

Will, then, the use of intoxicating liquor extend the 
duration and increase the enjoyment of human life ? 

NOTT, 



36 DIFFERENT OPINIONS HELD. 

If this be the case, it is befitting that certain minds 
should be disabused of a groundless prejudice against 
its use ; and on the contrary, if this be not the case, 
then is it befitting that certain other minds should 
be disabused of a no less groundless prejudice in 
favor of its use. 

We who now oppose the prevailing practice, once 
thought and acted as those who now advocate it 
think and act. And who knows but those who now 
advocate it, may hereafter think and act as we do ! 

They can not suppose that we who dislike self- 
denial as much, and love good cheer as well, as they 
do, have all at once, and without some good reason, 
real or imaginary, changed our habits, and abjured 
forever the use of an article, so long familiarized, and 
to which many of us at least were so much attached. 
As little can we suppose that they, who dread pain 
as much and love life as w T ell as we do, will continue 
the use of the same article, (unless where inebriation 
has become habitual,) after they shall discover, what 
we profess to have already discovered, that however 
prepared, and with whatever other ingredients combined, 
death is often, if not usually, one ingredient mingled 
in every cup in which it is contained. For, however 
some might be disposed, for filthy lucre's sake, to 
furnish a deleterious preparation, to be drank by 
others, few it is believed would be disposed to drink 
of it themselves. And if such a preparation has 
been introduced, introduced extensively, they only 
who are privy to the fraud, and expect to profit by 
it, will withold the meed of praise from the chemist 



WERE FOUNTAINS OF WATER POISONED. 37 

who establishes and the herald who proclaims the 
alarming fact. 

Had some drug, slow but certain in its work of 
death, been cast into those fountains whence your 
supply of water is derived, and had some wakeful 
guardians of the public welfare witnessed the trans- 
action ; more than this, had they caused the w r ater to 
be analyzed, detected the specific poison, tested its 
degree of virulence, and traced distinctly to its influ- 
ence much of the disease and death with which your 
city is afflicted, ought they, because a portion of the 
citizens not having themselves as yet experienced 
any inconvenience, were incredulous ; ought they, I 
repeat it, the less to sound the note of alarm on that 
account ? This will not be pretended. As little will 
it be pretended, that for a similar reason the note of 
alarm may not, with equal freedom, be sounded 
where, in the use of any other beverage, a question 
of life and death is concerned. But is s-uch a ques- 
tion here concerned ? Many people think there is ; 
think that in the manufacture and sale of the intoxi- 
cating liquors in use among us, fraud is practiced, 
and that under the guise of a healthful beverage, 
deleterious and destructive drinks are palmed on the 
community ; and that alike, though indifferent forms, 
in the hut of ignorance and the parlor of fashion. 

Now be the truth of this w r hat it may, they who 
believe this to be the truth are at liberty to proclaim 
that belief, even from the house-tops. " The life of 
map, is more than meat, and his body than raiment" But 
let it not be forgotten that they who do not believe 



38 QUESTION STATED* 

this, are at equal liberty in the same manner to pro- 
claim that they do not. Though error may, truth 
can have no reason to shun discussion. To think 
and speak and act on his own responsibility, and not 
to do the bidding of another, is alike the privilege of 
a freeman and a Christian. 

Here then is common ground, where an issue may 
be fairly joined, between the water drinker and the 
spirit drinker of every class and character. 

Are then intoxicating liquors of the kind and 
quality generally in use among us, deleterious, 
as a beverage, or are they not ? 

This is the real question ; and not whether being 
deleterious, they ought to be avoided? 

That pure alcohol is poison ; that every beverage 
containing alcohol contains an element of poison, 
and that other elements of poison are often, if not 
usually, contained in intoxicating liquors, are known 
and admitted facts. 

That these elements of poison, however, usually 
exist in such liquors, in sufficient intensity to disturb 
the healthy action of the system, by the production 
of crime, insanity, disease, or death, is not to be 
taken for granted, nor to be decided by reasoning 
a priori. 

The same article may be healthful to plants and 
injurious to animals ; healthful to animals and injuri- 
ous to men; healthful to one man and injurious to 
another; healthful to some men at one time and in 
one degree, and injurious at another time and in 
another degree ; or healthful in occasional, and inju- 



MOSES — SOLOMON. 39 

rious in habitual use. Now how is it with the seve- 
ral kinds of intoxicating liquors in use among us, are 
questions of fact not to be determined by clamor or 
dogmatism, but by observation and experiment. 

To furnish data for such determination, however, 
no new experiments are required to be performed ; 
a series of experiments reaching through more than 
forty centuries having been already furnished ; experi- 
ments tried first in Asia on the top of Ararat, where 
the Ark rested ; and since tried in Europe, in Africa, 
in America, and in the islands of the Sea. We have 
only to collect and collate these scattered and recor- 
ded results, to enable us to arrive at a knowledge 
of the truth, 

Hear Moses speak : " And Noah began to be an 
husbandman, and he planted a vine-yard, and he 
drank of the wine." What next ? " and he was 
drunken." I need not repeat the residue of the 
afflictive and humiliating details. Nor need I repeat 
the still more afflictive and humiliating details of 
drunkenness and incest, which the use of wine occa- 
sioned in the family of Lot after their departure from 
the vale of Sodom. 

Hear Solomon speak : " Who hath wo ? who hath 
sorrow ? who hath contentions ? who hath bab- 
blings ? who hath wounds without cause ? who hath 
redness of eyes ? 

" They that tarry long at the wine ; they that go 
to seek mixed wine. Look not thou upon the wine 
when it is red, when it giveth its color in the cup, 
when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth 



40 ISAIAH — PUNY. 

like a serpent and stingeth like an adder." Neither 
here need I repeat the residue of the afflictive and 
humiliating details. 

Hear Isaiah speak : " But they have erred through 
wine, and through strong drink are out of the way; 
the priest and the prophet have erred through strong 
drink ; they err in vision, they stumble in judgment. 
For all tables are full of vomit and filthiness, so that 
there is no place clean." 

But this, it is objected-, is the testimony of sacred 
writers only. It is so» Would that of profane wri- 
ters be deemed more conclusive ? 

Hear then Pliny the elder, speak. Pliny, than 
whom a purer patriot or a profounder sage lived not, 
out of Palestine, among the nations : "If we exam- 
ine closely, we shall find there is nothing on which 
more pains are bestowed by mankind, than on wine. 
As though nature had not liberally furnished water, 
with which all other animals are content : we even 
force our horses to drink wine,* and we purchase at 
great pains and expense a liquor which deprives man 
of the use of his reason, renders him furious, and is 
the cause of an infinite variety of crimes. 



* The custom of giving wine to horses was known to Homer. 
Vide, Iliad via., li., 88. Philip de Comines says, that "At the close 
of a battle, having made his war horse, who was very much exhausted 
and very old, drink wine, it appeared to renew and rejuvenate him. 
The practice is common enough among all our cavaliers." 

Columella, chap. 3, book 3d, recommends giving wine to cattle wor- 
ried and overheated with labor. 



PLINY. 41 

11 It is true it is so delicious that multitudes know 
no pleasure in life but that of drinking it. Yea that 
we may drink the more, we weaken this liquor by 
passing it through the straining bag,* and we invent 
other methods to stimulate our thirst ; we go so far 
as to employ poisons. Some persons before drinking 
make use of hemlock, t that the fear of death, may 
compel them to drink. Others swallow powder of 
pumice-stone and many other things which I should 
blush to name. 

" The most prudent facilitate the digestion of 
vinous crudities by resorting to sweating rooms, 
whence they are sometimes carried forth half dead. 
Some cannot even wait to reach their couch, on the 
first quitting of the bath, nor even to put on their 
tunic. But naked and panting as they are, rush 
eagerly on great pitchers of wine, which they drain 
to the bottom, as if to exhibit the strength of their 
stomachs. They next vomitj and drink anew, renew- 
ing the like career twice and three times, as though 
born only to waste wine ; as though men were under 



* Columella, book ix., chap. 15. — The Greeks were acquainted 
with the custom of passing wines through the saccus. 

[ Vide Theophrastus de causis vi., chap. 9.] The Romans used to 
pass through the saccus old and too heavy wines. Vide Martial lib. 
11, Epig. 40; also, xii., 61. 

f Wine is a remedy fur the poison of hemlock, according to Pliny, 
lib. xxii., sec. 17. 

X See on this custom, Cicero — Pro Dejotaro. Also Martial, book 
iii., Epig. 82. Suetonius, Life of Yitellius xiii., and of Claudius, 
chap, xiii, 



42 PLINY. 

obligation to be the channel by which wine should 
return to the earth. 

" Others borrow from the barbarians most extra- 
ordinary exercises to show that they are constituted 
genuine wine-bibbers. They tumble in the mire, 
where they affect to lay the head flat upon the back, 
and to display a broad and muscular chest. All this 
they shamefully practice, because these violent acts 
lead them to drink with increased avidity. 

"And now what shall we say to the infamous 
representations upon the drinking-cups and ves- 
sels for wine, which would seem as though drunken- 
ness alone were insufficient to excite men to lewd- 
ness. 

" Thus they drink, as if prostitution and drunken- 
ness, ye gods ! w^ere invited and even bribed with a 
reward. 

" Some receive a certain sum of money, on condi- 
tion of eating as much as they drink ; w T hile others 
expend in wine what they obtain in games of chance. 
Thus the eyes of the husband become heavy, while 
those of the wife are wide open, and employed in 
full liberty. 

" It is then the most secret thoughts are revealed. 
Some at such times disclose the contents of their last 
walls; others throw out expressions, which, in the 
common phrase, they will thereafter be forced to 
eat. 

" How many perish in consequence of words ut- 
tered in a state of inebriety ; so that it has passed 
into a proverb, that ' Wine brings truth to light.' 



PLINY. 43 

- " Such men, at best # see not the rising sun, and 
thus abridge their lives. Thence proceeds their pen- 
dulous cheeks, their ulcerated eyes, their trembling 
hands, incapable of holding the full glass without 
spilling a portion of its contents. Thence those 
furious transports which disturb their slumbers, and 
that inquietude, just punishment of their intemper- 
ance, in which their nights are passed. 

" The highest reward of their drunkenness is the 
creation of a monstrous passion, and a pleasure which 
nature and decency forbid. On the morrow their 
breath is still infected with the odor of wine. They 
experience, as it were, a death of memory, and almost 
total oblivion of the past. Those who live after this 
sort, call their conduct the art of making time and 
enjoying life ; though the day of their debauch and 
the subsequent day are equally lost. In the reign of 
Tiberius Claudius, about forty years ago, it became 
the custom at Eome, to drink wine in the morning 
with empty stomachs,sand to take no food till after 
drinking. This was of foreign derivation, and was 
introduced by certain physicians, who wish to com- 
mend themselves to the public favor by the intro- 
duction of some novelty. 

"To drink is, by the Parthians, considered highly 
honorable. Among the Greeks, Alcibiades has thus 
distinguished himself ; among the Latins, Marcellius 
Torquatus, of Milan, who had been praetor and pro- 



* Vide Seneca, Epig, 122. Athenaeus, lib. vi., p. 273; also some of 
the preface of Columella, 

KOTT. 



44 PLINY. 

consul, has obtained the surname Tricongius, by 
drinking at once three congii of wine* in the presence 
and to the great astonishment of the Emperor Tibe- 
rius, who, in his old age, became severe, and even 
cruel, but in his youth was much addicted to drinking. 

"It is believed, moreover, that Lucius Pisco obtained 
from him the prefectship of Borne, for having re- 
mained at table two days and two nights in succes- 
sion with this prince, who had even then mounted 
the throne. It was said, also, that in nothing did 
Drusus Caesar more closely resemble his father Tibe- 
rius, than in the quality of a deep drinker. 

" Torquatus, of whom we have spoken above, had 
no equal in his exact observance of the Bacchanal 
laws; for the art of drinking has also its laws. 
Whatever quantity of wine he drank, he never stut- 
tered or vomited. The morning found him still at 
his potations. He swallowed a great quantity of 
wine at one draught ; and if a small cup was poured 
out to him, he never failed to demand the remainder. 
While he drank he never took breath, or spat, and 
he never left in his glass any heel-taps which could 
produce sound when thrown on the pavement ; in 
which he diligently observed the rules for the pre- 
vention of trick in drinking. 

"Tergilla reproached M. T. Cicero, that he drank 
too congii at a single draught, and that one day, being 
intoxicated, he had thrown a glass at the head of 
Marcus Agrippa. Truly these are the works of 

* Three gallons, one quart and one pint. 



PLINY. 46 

drunkenness. But doubtless Cicero, the son, wished 
to take from Mark Antony, the murderer of his 
father, the palm of drunkenness ; for it is well known 
that, before him, Antony had been very jealous of 
the title of a first-rate drinker, and even published a 
treatise on his drunkenness, in which he dares to 
apologize for that vice. But this treatise persuades 
me only, that the drunkenness of Antony was the 
cause of all the evils with which he has afflicted the 
earth. He vomited forth this work a short time 
before the battle of Actium ; as if to show that he 
was already intoxicated with the blood of the citizens, 
and thirsted only the more for it. 

"For this necessity accompanies the vice of drun- 
kenness, that drinking augments thirst ; and every 
one knows this 'bon mot' of the Scythian ambassa- 
dor, that the more the Parthians drank, the more 
they thirsted. 

" The western nations have also peculiar intoxica- 
ting drinks. The Gauls and Spaniards composed 
them of grain steeped in divers manners. The Span- 
iards give them various names. There is a method 
of rendering them susceptible of long preservation. 
Similar drinks are also made in Egypt from grain. 
There is no part of the world where inebriation is 
not practiced ; for they drink such liquors pure — 
that is, without diluting them, like wine. The earth 
seemed to produce grain for the nourishment of man; 
but, by Hercules ! how industrious is vice ; we have 
found a method to make even water intoxicate us. 



46 RESPONSE FROM CALCUTTA SCOTLAND. 

" Two liquors are furnished by the trees, both very 
pleasant, wine for inward, and oil for outward appli- 
cation. Oil, however, is the most useful, and men 
have been industrious in their efforts to procure it ; 
but they have been infinitely more diligent in regard 
to wine, having invented ninety-five different kinds; 
perhaps double the number, on full examination, 
might be reckoned — and so few of oil ! " * 

If, then, the use of intoxicating wine, deemed to 
be the least deleterious of intoxicating liquors, re- 
quired, even in countries suited to the vine, so much 
caution, was attended with so much hazard, and led, 
even occasionally, to such lamentable results, w T hat 
was to have been expected from those other and 
baser fabrications, which the brewer's and distiller's 
arts have subsequently palmed on the world ? What ? 
Precisely what has taken place, — a mighty and gra- 
tuitous increase both of guilt and misery. 

But w T hat evidence is there that such has been the 
case ? You shall hear. To recent inquiries sent 
abroad by philanthropists, to different parts of the 
earth, the response returned from New- Holland was, 
" that in that colony intoxicating liquors promote 
crime, induce disease, and hasten death." A similar 
response has been returned from Calcutta, from Bur- 
mah, from Malacca, from China, from the Cape of 
Good Hope, from Continental Europe, and from the 
British Isles. 

*Plin., Lib. xiv., chap. 22, 



EVIDENCE NEAREK HOME. 47 

In Scotland — exemplary Christian Scotland — the 
use of intoxicating liquors has tripled in the last 
fifteen years. In 1823, the whole consumption 
amounted to 2,300,000 gallons ; in 1S37, to 6,776,715 
gallons. In Glasgow alone, there are two thousand 
two hundred spirit shops, that is one spirit shop for 
every ten dwelling-houses throughout the city. The 
consumption of spirituous liquors has increased in 
Glasgow during the last fifteen years five hundred 
per cent, whereas the population has increased only 
sixty-six per cent. But, mark ye, in the meantime 
crime has increased four hundred per cent, fever six- 
teen hundred per cent, death three hnndred per cent, 
and the chances of human life diminished forty-four 
per cent. What and appalling result ! * 

But this is too general and remote. Be it so. 
Turn we then to evidence more specific, and to lo- 
calities near home. If there be any truth in the 
declaration of physicians in our cities, or even in the 
verdict of juries returned over the bodies of the 
dead, and under the solemnity of an oath, then is 
drunkenness a most frightful source of death among 
ourselves. Nor is it, if the keepers of prisons and 
asylums are to be believed, a less frightful source of 
poverty, insanity and crime. It is apparent from 
the bills of mortality which have been kept, that in 
a single year twenty deaths have been occasioned in 
Portsmouth, N. H., by the use of intoxicating liquors : 
twenty-one in Salem, Mass. ; thirty-one in New 

* See Edinburgh Review for April, 1838 ; Trades Union, 

NOTT. 






48 EVIDENCE NEARER HOME. 

Haven, Conn.; thirty in New Brunswick, N. J., and 
seven hundred in Philadelphia. 

The average duration of life to those Irish emi- 
grants who pave the streets and rear the edifices in 
the city, and who excavate the canals and grade the 
railroads in the country, the average duration of life 
to this hard laboring (and alas •! that it should be so, 
till of late, hard drinking) population, is said, owing 
to this fatal propensity, to have been reduced to 
about five years from the time of their landing. 

And it is also said, that those emigrants, who year 
after year enter the States hale and healthy from the 
Canadas, stripped of their summer's earnings by those 
harpies of the dram-shop, enter on the winter beg- 
gared and comfortless, and that a third of their 
number, before the next spring opens, are, not unfre- 
quently, in their graves. 

After examination had, it has been made apparent, 
that of eight hundred and eighty maniacs in our 
asylums, four hundred owe their loss of reason to 
the use of intoxicating liquors. That seventeen hun- 
dred out of nineteen hundred paupers in our poor- 
houses, and thirteen hundred out of seventeen hun- 
dred criminals in our prisons, owe their pauperism 
and their crime to the same cause. That forty-three 
out of forty-four murders were committed under the 
influence of alcoholic stimulus. That sixty-seven 
oat of seventy-seven found dead, died of drunken- 
ness, and that four hundred out of six hundred and 
ninety juvenile delinquents either drank themselves 
or belonged to families that did so. 






DEATH AMONG ExMlGRANTS. 49 

"I have shown," says that indefatigable agent, 
Samuel Chipman, Esq., who visited all the poor- 
houses and prisons in the State of New-York, "I 
have shown beyond the power of contradiction, 
that more than three-fourths of all the pauperism is 
occasioned by intemperance, and that more than 
five-sixths of (all those committed for crime, are 
themselves intemperate. In no poor-house have I 
failed to find the wife, the widow, or the children 
of the drunkard. In one, of one hundred and 
ninety persons relieved the preceding year, w r ere 
nineteen wives of drunken husbands, and seventy- 
one children of drunken fathers. And in almost 
every jail w T ere husbands confined for whipping their 
wives, or otherwise abusing their households." 

This is certainly sufficiently near, and sufficiently 
specific. And yet intoxicating liquors, shame of 
human reason, disgrace of the nineteenth century, 
are manufactured and bought and sold and drank 
among us. More than this, their manufacture and 
sale are sanctioned by law T , as well as usage. And 
a revenue derived from this polluted and polluting 
source, by some strange mistake in legislation, is 
received into the public treasury. 

But have the witnesses relied on no preposses- 
sions? Is there no exaggeration in their state- 
ments? I have sometimes thought there might be; 
and I have therefore done, myself, what I advise 
each of you to do : that is deliberately to look 
around you and take, within the circle of your ow r n 

acquaintance, the dimensions of that misery which 
3 



50 SOCIAL CLUB IN SCHENECTADY. 

intemperance occasions, and sum up the number of 
dead which it has slain. 

A friend of mine once gave me the number and 
the names of a social club of temperate drinkers 
which once existed in Schenectady, and of which, 
when young, he was himself a member ; and I have 
remarked, how bereft of fortune, how bereft of repu- 
tation, bereft of health, and sometimes even bereft 
of reason, they have descended, one after another, 
prematurely to the grave ; until at length, though 
not an old man, that friend alone remains, of all 
their number, to tell how he himself was rescued, 
from a fate so terrible, by the timely and prophetic 
counsel of a pious jnother. And I have marked too 
how those pupils of my own, who, in despite warn- 
ing and admonition, and entreaty, persisted in the 
use of intoxicating liquors while at college, have, on 
entering the world, sunk into obscurity, and finally 
disappeared from among those rival actors, once their 
companions, rising into life ; and when, searching 
out the cause, I have, full of anxiety, inquired after 
one, and another, and another, the same answer has 
been returned, "lie has become, or gone a sot into 
the grave." 

Among these cases of moral desolation, I remember 
one of peculiar aggravation ; it was that of a gifted 
and aspiring individual, and a professed Christian. 
Crossed and humbled by domestic affliction, he sought 
as many still seek, relief in alcohol. His friends 
foresaw the danger and warned him of it; that 
warning he derided ; he even denied the existence of 



CASE OF PECULIAR AGGRAVATION- 51 

a propensity, which, by indulgence, was soon there- 
after rendered uncontrollable ; when suddenly, shrink- 
ing from the society of men, he shut himself up in 
his chamber and endeavored to drown his cares in 
perpetual inebriation. 

His abused constitution soon gave way, and the 
death-scene followed. But oh ! what a death-scene ! 
As if quickened by the presence of the King of Ter- 
rors, and the proximity of the world of spirits, his 
reason suddenly lighted up, and all his suspended 
faculties returned in their strength. But they /re- 
turned only to give to retribution a severer aspect, 
and render the final catastrophe more instructive and 
more terrible. For though at intervals he seemed to 
pour his soul out in confession, and to implore for- 
giveness in the most thrilling accents, shame, remorse, 
and despair were predominant: and there was, at 
times, an awfulness in the paroxysms of his agony, 
which no words can describe, and which can be real- 
ized by those only who witnessed it. " There," said 
he, pointing to his bottle and his glass, which he had 
caused to be placed beside his death-bed, "there is 
the cause of all my misery : that cup is the cup of 
wretchedness; and yet, fool that I have been ! I have 
drank it ; drank it voluntarily, even to its dregs. 
Oh, tell those miserable men, once my companions, 
who dream of finding in inebriation, oblivion to their 
miseries, as I have dreamed of this; tell them, — 
but it were vain to Wl them — oh ! that they were 
present, that they might see, in me, the dreadful 
sequel, and witness, in anticipation, the unutterable 



52 CASE OF PECULIAR AGGRAVATION. 

horrors of a drunkard's death." Here his voice fal- 
tered — his eye fell upon the abhorred cup — and, 
as his spirit fled, a curse, half articulated, died away 
upon his quivering lip ! 

Whatever exaggeration there may have been in 
those other statements, in these there is no exagger- 
ation. This is not poetry, but history. Nor is this 
the whole. To say nothing of the untitled dead ; 
the heads of families ; the members of families, 
whose number has not been summed up ; but — to 
say nothing of these — how many clergymen, how 
many physicians, how many jurists, in this and the 
neighboring cities, have, during the existing genera- 
tion, fallen victims to this destroyer? Who of my 
equals in age, does not remember those venerable 
men, all moderate drinkers, who once held, in Albany, 
their meetings at noon-day? And who does not 
remember, too, the result of those meetings ? — aye ! 
and of those other meetings, held at a later hour by 
their sons — those young men of promise, that were, 
but are not ! 

Over all classes in that beloved city intemperance 
hath cast its withering influence. Nor over these 
only. There is no city, or town, or hamlet, known 
to the speaker, where it is otherwise. Of all the 
avenues to death, the world over, this is the broadest, 
steepest, most frequented. The sword hath indeed 
slain its thousands, — but alcohol its ten thousands! 

Even in. this republic, we are fold by those familiar 
with such statistics, that there are more than five 
hundred thousand drunkards ' What a deduction 



FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DRUNKARDS. 53 

from our national virtue, honor, and happiness ! 
What an addition to our national guilt, infamy, and 
misery ! 

Could you see those wretched beings separated 
from the residue of community, and congregated 
together in some great common Aceldama, — what a 
spectacle of horror ! How much more so, could you 
see them individualized, dispersed among their 
friends and kindred, and linked each in his vileness, 
by ties tender and indissoluble, to other beings, — 
and often to beings of the purest virtue, of the live- 
liest sensibility, and the loftiest aspirings. Ah ! 
could you see them thus, what guage could measure 
the extent, or arithmetic sum up the amount, of 
misery comprehended within your field of vision ! 
Oh ! could you number those concealed tears, which 
flow from so many sleepless eyes, as God numbers 
them ; and hear those stifled sighs, that escape from 
so many sorrow-wounded hearts, as God hears them, 
you might then, but not till then, form an adequate 
idea of the superadded good which intoxicating 
liquors must hereafter produce, to cancel the dread 
amount of gratuitous evil they have already inflicted 
upon mankind ! 

Five hundred thousand drunkards in this repub- 
lic !! But I will not vouch for the accuracy of their 
enumeration. I am aware that among the advocates 
of almost every cause there exists a propensity to 
exaggerate ; and I will not, even in a good cause, 
insist on a hypothetical enumeration, or urge an 
inconclusive argument. Not having verified the 



54 FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND DRUNKARDS. 

details furnished of local drunkenness, I donot know 
with certainty the national amount. 

But I do know, if drunkards exist elsewhere as 
they exist in the Empire State, that their whole 
number must be very great. For I do know, that 
here they crowd our prisons, our jails, our asylums, 
our poor-houses, and our work-shops ; and that they 
may be found in our drawing-rooms, our halls of 
legislation, our halls of justice, our halls of science, 
and even — alas, that it should be so ! — our temples 
of devotion ! 

Besides the loss of the intellectual resource, and 
the physical energy, and the sufferance of the indeli- 
ble national disgrace, and the deep domestic misery, 
which this mighty army of drunkards occasion, they 
contribute, as has already been shown, more than 
any other cause, — nay, more than all other causes, — 
to augment our poor rates, to augment the expense 
for criminal arrests, for criminal prosecutions, and 
threaten ultimately to overthrow our civil institutions. 
For, if their numbers shall increase hereafter as they 
have increased heretofore, the time will come, in this 
downward career, when revenues will be wanting to 
furnish bread for the poor, and build prisons for the 
guilty ; because the time will come when the earn- 
ings of the sober and industrious few will be inade- 
quate to provide for the wants of the drunken and 
idle many, when intemperance itself, amid the com- 
mon privation, will be restrained by the very desti- 
tution which intemperance has occasioned. 






MISERY RESULTING. 55 

Be the number of drunkards in this republic what 
it may, that drunkenness exists, and that to a fright- 
ful extent, can not be denied. And the question of 
chief concern is : 

HOW CAN IT BE REMEDIED ? 

Can the ax be laid at the root of the tree? . Or is 
the evil incurable ? And must the process of des- 
truction go on till all that is sublime in intellect, 
cheering in liberty, and holy in religion, fades and 
disappears before it ? Must the eye as it glances 
onward through the vista of futurity, instead of meet- 
ing with the bright and joyous scenes of progressive 
improvement, until it reaches and rests on the pre- 
dicted visions of millenial glory — instead of this, 
must it meet only with poverty, and crime, and de- 
cay, and desolation as exhibited in diminished trade, 
in less productive husbandry, in forsaken dwellings 
and augmented numbers of ragged, squalid wretches 
lounging in bar-rooms, hanging round the doors of 
dram-shops, staggering along the public avenues, or 
snoring in the gutters of those lanes and by-paths, 
which lead, not to the bread, but to the beer and 
rum-selling grocery? Must this be so by any neces- 
sity of nature ? Or is there yet a remedy ? There 
is — here as elsewhere — remove the cause, and 

THE EFFECT CEASES. 

But we cannot now discuss, at length, the remedy. 
That must remain for a future opportunity. In 
conclusion, therefore, we have only briefly to say, 

NOTT. 



56 IS THERE ANY REMEDY? 

that if we would rid ourselves of the curse of the 
drunkard's drunkenness, we must rid ourselves of 
the use of the drunkard's drink. There is no alter- 
native, the prevailing usage of society must be 
annulled or provision made, and made by us, for 
its future maintenance — a frightful provision ; a 
provision of muscle, and of mind, as well as of 
money ! 

I repeat it, there is no alternative ; this whole 
existing system of moderate drinking must be abol- 
ished, or the expense of sustaining it provided for by 
us, and by those who shall live after us ; as it has 
hitherto been, by those who lived before us. Yes, 
as the years roll round, we must consent to the deci- 
mation of our families, and the families of our friends 
and neighbors, that we may furnish therefrom victims 
for the dispepsia, the dropsy, the delirium tremens ; 
and inmates for the poor-house — the house of cor- 
rection a nd the house of silence ! More than this, 
having furnished the victims of destruction, we must 
furnish also the elements of destruction, and the 
ministers of destruction. 

We must pay for the growing of the grapes and 
the grain ; then for the manufacture of the whiskey 
and the wine, and then for the distribution of both, 
by those privileged vendors, whose exclusive right 
it is to dispense among the people from their licensed 
stalls, these elements of death. 

Frightful system ! What a wreck of life : what 
a waste of money its continuance must occasion. 



MODERATE DRINKING — EVILS OF. 57 

Britain pays, as appears from a late parliamentary 
report, annually, fifty millions sterling,* for the 
mere articles out of which intoxicating drinks are 
fabricated. Besides which, she loses annually fifty 
millions* by fires and wrecks occasioned by the drun- 
kenness which those fabricated drinks produce. In 
like manner, she loses seventy millions by the pro- 
ductive industry thus paralyzed and rendered profit- 
less ; together with the product of one-seventh of 
her soil, which is appropriated to the raising of arti- 
cles for the brew-house and the still. 

If such be the ascertained expense of sustaining 
the usage of moderate drinking in Britain, what must 
it be in the United States? What in this State? 
What in this city ? Were the inhabitants of which 
assembled, or could my voice reach them, dispersed 
as they are, I would say to the heads of every family 
apart : Though you can not ascertain how much the 
State expends for intoxicating liquors, annually, 
you can ascertain how much you expend yourself. 
Will vou ascertain this?— and having done so, dis- 
tribute, under appropriate heads, according to your 
best judgment, the entire amount. 

Say, so much for furnishing victims to disease — so 
much for depriving men of their property — so 
much for depriving men of their reason — and so 
much for peopling the grave yard— so much for cor- 
rupting the morals of the youth — -so much for aggra- 
vating the miseries of age — so much for disturbing 



f $200,000,000. 



58 BRITAIN — UNITED STATES. 

the peace of families — so much for embittering the 
cup of connubial joy — and so much for mingling 
humiliation with the exercise of filial piety. 

If you will do this, you will know, not only how 
much money you have paid away, but you will know 
also what you have paid that money for. 









LECTURE No. II. 



THE REMEDY. 

Intoxicating liquors useful, but not as a beverage in health — Those 
who use intoxicating liquors, and live to be old, live not in conse- 
quence, but in spite of drinking — Intoxicating liquors analogous 
to exhilirating gas— The number of deaths by the use of in- 
toxicating liquors very great — The waste of life by intoxicating 
liquors supplied from the ranks of temperate drinkers — Delete- 
rious effects of distilled liquors, of beer and of bad wine. 

Having glanced, in the preceding lecture, at the 
frightful evils of drunkenness, we come now to 
inquire, 

Whether these evils are endured by any necessity of 
nature, or whether they are evils for wldch a remedy 
exists ? 

The latter doubtless. Here, as elsewhere, remove 
the cause and the effect ceases. What then is the 
cause of drunkenness ? It is drinking. But be it 
observed, that it is not the drinking, or even the 
excessive drinking of water, the beverage which 
nature supplies for the allaying of thirst, or of milk, 
er of various other nutritive and healthful beverages, 
but the drinking of intoxicating liquors only, which 
produces these frightful results. 

Not?. 



60 A GOOD CREATtfRE— USED WITH IMPUNITY. 

Why then should the drinking of those liquors be 
continued? Why? Methinks I hear the objector 
ask: Deserves this question even a reply? — would 
anyone but a fanatic propose it? Are not intoxi- 
cating liquors among the good creatures of God, that 
their use as a beverage must be relinquished? 
Doubtless they are among the good creatures of God ; 
and should therefore be received with gratitude, and 
may be used with innocence. 

Far be it from me to speak irreverently of any of 
the bounties of Providence. Intoxicating liquors 
have doubtless their appropriate use, and may there- 
fore be used whenever and wherever their use is ap- 
propriate ; that is to say, they may be used in the 
arts, in sickness, in great physical exhaustion ; and, 
in one word, on all those occasions and for all those 
purposes for which intended by the Creator. But 
does it follow from this that they were intended by 
him to be used as we use them, habitually and as a 
beverage in health ? And if not so intended by him, 
then not rightfully so used by us ; and such usage, 
by whomsoever indulged, will be productive of ulti- 
mate misery. It is vain to seek happiness w T here 
God forbids it, and the search, by whatever argu- 
ments defended, and however long continued, will 
end in disappointment. 

But some, it is affirmed, have used intoxicating 
liquors — even distilled liquors — through a long life 
with entire impunity. And some too, it is also 
affirmed, have used arsenic, and even prussic acid, 
with a like impunity. And were it even so, could 



DOUBTFl'L WHETHEK DSED WITH IMPUNITY. Gi 

any general inference be drawn from this V Or should 

there be, and shoul ad prussic acid, in con- 

sequence, be introduced into common use? What 

Jd be thought of the man who, standing amid 
the dying and the dead, occasioned by their intro- 
duction, should still point to the few solitary cases of 
seeming exemption, in evidence of the harmless and 
even healthful tendency oi these destructive agents? 
What would be thought of him ! Precisely what 
e thought bf the man who reasons in the 

e manner a] itoxicating liquors, that how- 

ever honest his convictions may be. the conclusi 
arrived at are not the less erroneous on that account. 
But is it quite certain that any have used intoxi- 
cating liquors, as a common beverage, through a long 
lite, with entire impunity ? T;ia: such use of those 
liquors has been ruinous to multitudes is undeniable. 
And yet so gradual has the approach of their ruin 
been, that years have passed away before they have 
3D convinced roach. Nor have they 

generally been convinced of it till it was too late to 
profit by the conviction. And who knows but those 

try headed veterans, who having outlived their 
generation, still drink and live : who knows but they 
still live in spite, nut in consequence of drinking? 
Who knows but each treacherous sip. which even 

se men of years have taken from the poisoned 
chalice, may not. in place of adding, have taken 
some pulsations from a heart created to beat so often, 
some moments from a life granted to endure so long ? 
so that even these iron constitutions of power to 



62 WHO BEST JUDGES. 

withstand so much, in place of owing anything to 
alcohol, may have been only impaired and enervated 
by its influence.* But who so well knows whether 

* Dr. A. S. Pierson, of Salem, in bis testimony before the com- 
mittee of the Legislature of Massachusetts, said he had been a 
practitioner of medicine for twenty-two years, and had had frequent 
opportunities to notice the effects of alcohol on the physical system. 
He described the immediate and remote effect which was produced 
by alcohol. When introduced into the stomach, a morbid action is 
produced approximating to inflammation. This was greater or lees 
in proportion to the quantity used. It then ascends into the brain, 
and materially effects the action of that delicate organ, interfering 
"with and embarrassing the intellectual operations. It also causes a 
quickened motion of the heart, the action of which organ is thereby 
increased — being an exemplification of the saying that " a man lives 
too fast." This excitement is succeeded by a corresponding degree 
of languor. The free use of alcohol is often the cause of apoplexy, 
and congestion of the brain. 

The remote effects produced by the use of alcoholic liquors as a 
drink are more extensive. It is often the cause of disease in the 
stomach, occasioning an induration or thickening of the lining of that 
organ — or producing ulceration. The pylorus, or outlet of the stom- 
ach is particularly liable to be affected. It also produces a morbid 
effect on the brain, tending to apoplexy. Also on the heart, and 
through the blood by means of the capillary vessels to the farthest parts 
of the system, causing dropsy, &c. 

It affects the breathing organs — distending the capillaries pf the 
lungs, and creates tubercles, which is the proximate cause of consump- 
tion. It also often causes diseases of the liver. 

The habitual use of alcohol renders the w r hole system morbid, and 
makes ordinary diseases more obstinate and difficult to be cured. It 
aggravates various diseases, and conduces to various diseases. Al- 
though the effect of cold on the system, while under the immediate 
excitement of ardent spirits may be diminished, yet in a short time 
the system becomes weak and languid and more susceptible to cold 
than when no ardent spirit has been used. Hence, when a man is 
found frozen to death, an empty rum bottle is almost always found 



DR. PIERSON 5 S TESTIMONY. G3 

the habitual use of intoxicating liquors is beneficial, 
as those who use such liquors habitually ; and why 



by his side. The use of alcohol, although it may for a time increase 
action, does not increase power. 

It is a mistaken notion that ardent spirit aids a man in enduring fa* 
tigue. It causes him to exert himself more for a brief period, but 
at the expense of his constitution. A man who pursues this course, 
merely silences the monitor which tells him he has labored enough. He 
disregards the Toice of his physical conscience by using alcoholic 
drinks, and thus injures his physical system. 

In the cross»examination of Dr. Pierson, the following facts were 
brought out in relation to the habits and age of the late Dr. Holyoke, 
of Salem. 

Mr. Ballet. — How^long may a person use ardent spirits moderately, 
without any perceptible injury to health ? 

Dr. Pierson.— In very small quantities a long time. A man ma'y 
use poison of any sort, in very small quantities, and yet be preserved by 
the conservative principle implanted in the human system as a defence. 

Mr. Ballet. — Were you acquainted with the late Dr. Holyoke, of 
Salem ? 

Dr. Pierson. — Yes. I had the honor of being his biographer. 

Mr, Ballet. — How long did he live ? 

Dr. Pierson.-*- One hundred years.- 

Mr. Ballet.— What were his habits ! 

Dr. Pierson.— He was in the habit of being temperate in all things. 
He was a man of most remarkable character — never tempted to ex- 
cess. He used to live without much care — without ■ thinking whether 
he would do himself harm or not. He was very cheerful, and of a 
very benevolent heart and easy conscience, and patient of little injuries. 
He was in the habit of using intoxicating drinks in small quantities. 
He had a preparation which consisted of one table spoonful of Jamaica 
rum and one table spoonful of cider, diluted with water, which he 
used after dinner while smoking his pipe ; I would mention in connec- 
tion with this habit, that he did not die oft old age. I examined the 
body myself with very great care and attention. The heart and organs 
which are apt to be diseased in aged persons, and to become hardened 
like stone were as soft as an' infant's ; and for aught that appeared, 



04 DR. PIERSON\s TESTIMONY. 

on this mere question of fact is not their testimony 
decisive ? Because these liquors act on the mind as 

might have gone another hundred years. And so of the other organs* 
The liver and brain were in a healthy state. He died of the disease 
which is most commonly produced by the use of ardent spirits and to* 
bacco, an internal cancer. There was a band three or four inches 
broad around the stomach, which was schirrous or thickened. I am far 
from wishing to say anything to the discredit of the late Dr. Holyoke, 
who was my personal friend. But if his great age is to be made an ar* 
gument for the moderate use of spirits, I desire that his schirrous 
stomach should be put along side of it, — Temperance Journal for 
1839,^. 67. 

Dr. Gordon, of the London Hospital, stated before the committee of 
the House of Commons in Great Britain, u that seventy-five cases of 
disease out of every hundred could be traced to drinking.'"' 
. He also declared " that most of the bodies of moderate drinkers, 
which, when at Edinburgh he had opened, were found diseased in the 
liver; and that those symptoms appeared also in the bodies of temper* 
ate people, which he had examined in the West Indies. He more than 
once says that the bodies whose livers he had found diseased were 
those of moral and religious people. n 

That human life shall be very greatly prolonged beyond its present 
limits, is one of the plain declarations of prophecy. The following is 
Dr. Lowth's translation of the 65th chap, of Isaiah, verse 20, 23: 

u No more shall there be an infant short lived, 
Nor an old man who hath not fulfilled his days ; 
For he that dieth a hundred years old shall die a boy, 
And the sinner that shall die at a hundred years 
Shall be deemed accursed, 

u And they shall build houses and inhabit them ; 

And they shall plant vineyards and eat the fruit of them ; 
They shall not build and another inhabit ; 
They shall not plant and another eat. 

"For as the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, 
And they shall wear out the works of their own hands. 
My chosen shall not labor in vain, 
Neither shall they generate a short lived race." 



STATISTICS OF LONGEVITY. 



65 



well as the body. Hence, all who use them become 
excited; some less, some more; some even to mad- 



In the tables of mortality for England and Wales, commencing at 
1813, and ending with 1830, being a period of eighteen years, we find 
that from the age of eighty-one to that of one hundred and twenty- 
four, upwards of two hundred and forty-five thousand persons were 
buried. Of these eleven thousand one hundred and seventy-three lived 
to the age of ninety, and seven hundred and seven lived to the age of 
one hundred years ; eighteen lived to one hundred and ten ; three died 
at one hundred and twenty, and one man lived to be one hundred and 
twenty-four. 

The following well authenticated instances of longevity are copied 
from Baker's Curse of Britain, page 24, second edition : 



Names. 


Years. 


Names. 


Years. 


Eleanor Aymar 


lived 


103 


John Gordon 


lived 


132 


Ellen Pritchard 


ci 


JOS 


John Taylor 


tt 


133 


Her Sisters 


"} 


; 104 

! 108 


Catharine Lopez 
Margaret Forster 


«i 
«i 


134 
136 


Paul the Hermit 


u 


113 


John Mount 


ii 


136 


James the Hermit 


it 


104 


Margaret Patten 


ii 


137 


St. John the Silent 


tt 


104 


Juan Morroygota 


tt 


138 


St. Theodosius 


ti 


105 


Rebecca Parry 


ti 


140 


Thomas Pavis 


tc 


106 


Dumitor Radaloy 


tt 


140 


His Wife 


it 


105 


Countess of Desmond 


it 


140 


Ann Parker 


it 


108 


Mr. Ecleston 


ii 


143 


St. Anthony 


ii 


105 


Solomon Nibel 


it 


143 


Simon Stylites 


ii 


109 


William Evans 


i< 


145 


Mrs. Ann Wall 


ti 


111 


Joseph Bam 


ti 


146 


St. Epiphanr •* 


tt 


115 


Col. Thomas Winsloe 


it 


146 


Arsenius 


ii 


120 


Slywark Hen 


it 


150 


Romualdus 


ti 


120 


Judith Crawford 


*< 


150 


Apollonius of Tyana* 


«i 


130 


Catharine Hyatt 


ii 


150 


Margaret Darly 


it 


130 


Francis Consist 


ti 


152 


Francis Peat 


a 


130 


James Bowels 


tt 


152 


William Ellis 


n 


130 


Thomas Parr 


tt 


152 


Damberger 


41 


130 


Thomas Dama 


tt 


154 


Peter Garden 


II 


131 


Robert Lynch 


ii 


160 






66 



STATISTICS OF LONGEVITY. 



ness. Indeed it may be questioned whether our 
perceptions are not always more clear, and our judg- 
ment more correct, without than with these feverish 
excitements. I do not pretend to have had any 
peculiar advantages for observing the effects of alco- 



Name. 


Years. 


Name. 


Years, 


Mrs. Leritia Cox 


lived 160 


Peter Portin 


lived 185 


Sarah Rovin 


" 164 


Mongate 


" 185 


Henry Jenkins 


" 169 


Petratsch Czarten 


" 185 


John Rovin 


*' 172 


Thomas Caen 


" 207 



110 " 


115 


121 " 


125 " 


126 u 


130 " 


131 u 


140 " 


145 




150 to 


155 years. 


160 




165 





From the Statistics of Russia, it appears that in 1838 there were in 
that country the following instances of longevity : 

850 persons had reached from 100 to 105 years. 

120 

121 

3 

6 

1 

3 

1 

1 

Herodotus tells us that the average life of the Macrobians was one 
hundred and twenty years, and that they never drank anything stronger 
than milk. 

Speaking of the New Zealanders, Ha wken worth says: " Water is 
their universal and only liquor, and in our visits to their towns, 
we never saw a single person who appeared to have any bodily com- 
plaint." 

A further proof of health is the facility with which wounds heal, 
and a still further, is the great number of old men we saw : many of 
whom, by the loss of their hair and teeth, appeared to be very ancient, yet 
none were decrepit ; and though not equal to the young in muscular 
strength, were not a whit behind them in cheerfulness and vivacity. — 
Bacchus, p. 115. 



•T* EXHILARATING GAS. 67 

holic stimulants ; but I have often witnessed the 
operation of a kindred influence. 

It is usual for lecturers on chemistry to administer 
to certain of their hearers a gas, called in common 
parlance, exhilarating gas ; why this is done I know 
not, unless it be to show r how much like madmen 
individuals previously sane may, by artificial stimu- 
lus, be made to act ; a purpose, if indeed such be 
the purpose, which is answered most effectually. 

Now, to breathe this gas too long is death ; this, 
those w r ho are about to breath it know; and yet 
knowing this, no sooner do they commence the 
breathing of this gas, than they severally persist in 
continuing to breathe it ; and they would persist in 
continuing to breathe it even to the death* if not 
forcibly prevented. 

The case of the inebriate seems to be analogous. 
For, having once acquired the taste for intoxicating 
liquor, though he foresees the consequence, he clings 
with a death grasp to the chalice in which it is con- 
tained, and from which he can only be disengaged 
by violence. 

But though, (not like exhilarating gas, which al- 
ways kills if continued,) intoxicating liquor were in- 
nocuous to certain individuals, since who they are can 
only be known by an experiment which must prove 
fatal to most of those who try it, can it be a question 
whether such experiment ought to be from age to 
age repeated ? 

Terrible as drunkenness is, it is not only com- 
puted, as has been shown, that there are five hun- 

NOTT. 



68 LIFE OF DRUNKARDS SHORT. 

dred thousand drunkards in this republic, but it has 
also been computed, that of our entire population, 
one in twenty-six die drunkards. If one-half of that 
population practice total abstinence, and including 
women and children, this is probably the case, then, 
of all who drink, one in thirteen die drunkards. 

Now the life of drunkards by way of eminence, is 
short. Generations of them are swept away with a 
rapidity that amazes. And yet their frightful num- 
ber is not diminished. 

Whence do the successive columns of this unbro- 
ken and mighty army of inebriates come ? How are 
its perpetually thinned ranks perpetually filled up ? 
Where is the exhaustless fountain that sends forth 
this everlasting stream of life, to replenish those 
mighty w T astes which death by drunkenness occa- 
sions ? Where ? In the bosom of moderate drinking 
families ; often intelligent, amiable, and even edu- 
cated moderate drinking families. 

Who does not know that this class of community 
furnished all the raw material, the muscle and sinew, 
the intellect and virtue, in one word all the bodies 
and souls of men to be operated on. Nay, that they 
perform the operation, unintentionally, I admit, still 
that they perform the operation, by which that fright- 
ful transformation of moderate into immoderate 
drinkers is effected. 

Yes, those interesting little groups of moderate 
drinking families, where evervthin^is so tasteful and 
orderly ; where so many moralities are practiced, so 
many sympathies cherished, and so many charities 






SUPPLIED FROM TEMPERATE DRINKERS 69 



dispensed ; those groups are the primary assemblies, 
whence most of the drunkards, which infest and dis- 
grace community, are sent abroad. Nay, they are 
the elementary schools in which the first principles 
of inebriation are practically taught. 

In these families, and in those larger social circles 
in which they meet, temptation in a thousand covert 
and alluring forms is every day presented ; and under 
a thousand plausible pretences, usages are main- 
tained, that go to create the taste, to confirm the 
habit, and carry forward, through all its humiliating 
stages, that downward process, by which one gene- 
ration of temperate drinkers after another are grad- 
ually transformed into intemperate drinkers, and 
thus qualified to take, in their turn, the place of 
those confirmed drunkards who are constantly mak- 
ink their way, through the poor-house and the pris- 
on-house and every other avenue of death, down to 
the charnel-house. 

And if, as has been computed by Chipman, one in 
thirteen of all who drink, die drunkards, and if, as 
has also been computed, the drunkard's life is shorter 
than the lives of other men ; and if the perpetually 
thinned ranks of drunkards are wholly filled up from 
the ranks of moderate drinkers, how long, even 
though there w T ere no other cause of mortality : How 
long, to speak in the language of political econo- 
mists, w r ould it take at the present rate of demand 
and supply, to remove from the w T orld, by intempe- 
rance alone, the entire moderate drinking moiety of 
the human familv ? 



70 INQUEST FROM HEAVEN*. 

In how many, think you, among those who now 
appear entirely sane and healthful, are the seeds of 
future disease and dissolution sown? 

In how many will he secret malady begin to be 
developed this year, in how many the next, and in 
how many the year thereafter ? 

Were an inquest held by some minister from 
Heaven for separating from the congregation of 
moderate drinkers all infected, persons, as the leprous 
were separated from the congregations of Israel, 
what think you would be the discoveries of such an 
inquest? 

Could we, looking round on our families and kin- 
dred and neighbors, see their real condition as God 
sees it, might it not be said of one and another not 
now suspected, " That in this and this individual the 
infection has taken, and the process of death begun? " 
So much more time, and so many additional demi- 
johns of wine or barrels of beer or jugs of rum, is all 
that is wanting to ripen into maturity the inflamed 
eye, the bloated countenance, the"<lemented look, 
the disgusting hiccough, and even the frightful deli- 
rium tremens. 

This is not history. I know it is not, but I also 
know that to many a temperate drinking family, 
within my hearing, unless they change their habits, 
or Nature her laws, it will one day become history ! 

Considering the hazard that attends even the 
moderate habitual use of intoxicating liquors, who 
can say of any living man, that so uses those liquors, 
that he is safe? 



DISTILLED LIQUORS RELINQUISHED. 71 

Or. though this might be said of some, is it certain 
that it. can be said of you ? You have tasted of that 
chalice., sparingly, I admit — still you have tasted of 
if, often tasted of it ; and who knows whether the 
disease it so often generates may not though latent 
have been already generated. 

A disease destined hereafter to impair your reason, 
to impair your constitution, and bring down your 
manly frame prematurely and with dishonor to the' 
grave. 

But though you w T ere safe, it is certain that your 
children, and your children's children w r ho surround 
your table, and have access to your sideboard, where 
temptation in so many forms is from day to day pre- 
sented — is it certain that all these are safe also? Is 
it certain that that son of thine, wise above his years, 
that daughter, lovely beyond her sex, may not even 
now be under the inceptive, undiscovered, unsus- 
pected, influence of a malady, often insidious and 
lingering indeed, but always progressive, and as inex- 
orable as death? 

But in reply to this, it will be said in certain 
quarters, "Though we and ours make use of intoxi- 
cating liquors, they are fermented, and not distilled 
liquors: rum, gin, brandy, and those other obnoxious 
products of the still, have long since -been relin- 
quished ; and surely, mere malt liquor, when used in mod- 
eration, can not injure any one; and as to ivine, the Bible 
sanctioned its use in Palestine, and still sanctions its use" 

It is well to have relinquished the use of rum, gin, 
brandy and those other obnoxious products of the still. 

NOTT. 



72 EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL. 

And it were well for any who have not yet relin- 
quished their use to inquire into their nature, and 
their effects upon the human organism, that they too 
may be the better prepared to decide whether it be 
not wise in them also to relinquish their use. 

Alcohol (which is the sole intoxicating principle 
in these liquors, when unadulterated), " pure alcohol 
coagulates all the animal fluids except the urine, and 
hardens the solid parts. It instantly contracts the 
extremities of the nerves it touches, and deprives 
them of sense and motion. If received into the 
stomach, it produces the same effects. If the quan- 
tity be considerable, a palsy or apoplexy follows, 
ending in death." Alcohol used constantly, and in 
less quantities, causes inflammation in this delicate 
organ : " The disease is insidious, and invariably 
advances, thickening and indurating the walls of the 
stomach, and producing sometimes schirrous and 
sometimes cancer ; the orifices become occasionally 
indurated and contracted, and when this is the case, 
death soon puts an end to the sufferings of the 
wretched victims. 

It should seem that such an article, an article not 
contained in rye, or barley, or grapes, or apples ; not 
the product of the vineyard, or the orchard, or the 
harvest-field, as is usually supposed, but the product 
of putrefaction ; it should seem that such an article, 
an article at once the product of death and the ele- 
ment of death ; it should seem that such an article 
contained enough of vengeance in it to satisfy the 



ADULTERATION OF ALCOHOL. 73 

avarice of dealers and the appetite of drinkers, with- 
out the addition of other and more deadly ingredients. 

But so is not the fact ! 

Chemistry, which revealed the process by which 
alcohol is obtained, has also revealed the further pro- 
cess by which it may be adulterated, and cheaper as 
well as more deadly poisons furnished. By such a 
revelation avarice has not failed to profit ; and as the 
knowledge of that further process has gradually been 
extended, the use of alcohol has gradually dimin- 
ished, and intenser poisons been substituted in its 
place, till death has come to be more certainly than 
formerly dispensed in the inebriating cup, whether 
poured out by the hand of the landlord or the gro- 
cer ! * So much for distilled liquors. More might 



* In Dubrunfant and Jones, translated by Sheridan, 4th ed., Lon- 
don, 1830, it is asserted in reference to French brandies, page 132: 
44 They are designedly imitated. Dulcified nitre is used for that pur- 
pose." Page 140 : "Many distillers substitute caustic alkalies; in 
fact, almost evey distiller has some secret nostrum for rectifying his 
spirits. They may be all reduced to three ; by fixing alkaline salts ; by 
acid spirits mixed with saline salts ; and by saline bodies and flavoring 
additions." 

Page 145 : u Malt spirit is usually sold by weight to rectifying distil- 
lers, who distill it over again, combining it with certain materials, with 
a view of making it into gin, brandy, rum," &c. 

Page 158, speaking of the various methods used for the " sophisti- 
cation " of brandy, &c, he says of one of them : u this brandy recedes 
from those distilled spirits reckoned safe and wholesome." Of another 
method : " This brandy is more depraved than the first, as it comes 
over the still nearly as so much ardent spirits ( malt ) mixed with 
brandy, and it will of course exert its noxious qualities upon those who 
drink it," 

4 



74 TESTIMONY. 

indeed be said; but more is not necessary. They 
who believe not Moses and the Prophets, would not 
believe, though one were to rise from the dead. 



" The most general mode of adulterating is, by putting a counterfeit 
kind to the genuine. This counterfeit brandy is made of .malt spirits, 
dulsified by a re-distillation of acids." 

Page 159 : " Lapis infernalis, ( infernal stone ), made of lime, pearl- 
ash, potash, &c, is used for keeping down the feints, has a great effect 
upon the wholesomeness of the liquors. The acid used in the prepara- 
tion of counterfeit brandy is aquafortis. When combined with recti- 
fied spirits, it raises a flavor and taste much resembling those of brandy; 
but if a certain proportion of water be mixed with such brandy, a sep- 
aration of the ardent spirits and acid immediately follows." 

The noxious effects of these on the health of those who drink such 
brandy are often melancholy in the extreme. 

Page 161 : He mentions that various simple additions are made to 
weak spirits to give a heat. 

Page 193 : " Pearl ashes, potash, ashes, soaper's ley water, oil of 
almonds, oil of vitriol, &c, to make artificial proof" *•■ So convinced was 
he of the danger of this, that he says : " Notwithstanding I have given 
it, I do not recommend any to use it." 

Page 194: " Vitriolic liquor, composed of spirits of. i wine, oil of 
vitriol, and the stronger caustics, &c, used to dissolve and to keep in 
solution the poisonous oils in liquor, and to prevent waste." 

Page 197 : " Dulcified spirits, of nitre, made of spirits of wine and 
nitrous acid ; to make counterfeit French brandy." 

Page 205 : "Oil of wormwood." 

Page 210: "Kernels of apricots, nectarines, peaches, and bitter 
almonds." 

Page 212 : " Oil or essence of ambergris." 

Page 214: "Alum." 

Page 221 : " Logwood." 

Page 256 : " Pepper." ' 

Page 486 : " Potashes, alkalies, salt worts, and lime." 

Page 202 : " Spirits of nitre, either strong or dulcified, used to give 
vinosity to spirits." 



TESTIMONY. 75 

As to mere malt liquor, not now to agitate the 
question whether it be harmless ; nor the question 

Page 235 : " Carbonic acid gas for wines, to conceal their acidity by 
certain substances, and if this cannot be longer done, to turn them into 
vinegar." 

Page 4*75 : "Acids used to give sharpness to liquors, &c." 

Page 463 : " The essential oil, or empyreuma, acrid, and caustic." 

Page 468 : " This oil is so energetic that a few drops are sufficient to 
give an obnoxious taste to a whole pipe. It is most difficult to succeed 
in separating this oil from distilled spirits. The distillers use other in- 
gredients to mask their qualities." 

Page 469 : u Grain and potatoes, when distilled, have an essential oil, 
from certain causes, much worse than that furnished by those vegeta- 
bles. This oil is acrid and extremely caustic. Distillers endeavor to 
disguise its flavor." 

Page 507 : * The oil in the spirits of lees is so penetrating and acrid, 
that six drops are sufficient to infect a whole pipe." 

Page 508 : "It is certain that lees and spirits contain a peculiar oil, 
odorous and very acrid, altering their qualities very much." 

Extracts from the Wine and Spirit Merchants Companion. 
J. Hartley, London, 1835. 

Page 13: "Beading for brandy, rum, &c. Oil of sweet almonds, 
oil of vitriol, &c." 

Page 15 : " Clearings for wine. The size of a walnut of sugar of 
lead, with sal-eruxum." 

Page 25 : " Finings for gin. Roach alum." 

Page 20 : " To make gin. Oils of juniper, bitter almonds, cassia, oil 
of vitriol." 

Page 31 : " Twenty gallons of water may be added, as the ingredi- 
ents ( 30 ) will give ten gallons more apparent strength." 

♦Page 32: " To clear tainted gin. American potash, roach alum, 
salts of tartar, &c." 

Page 35 : " Hum reduced with strong beer and water, which is sold 
for rum." 

Page 41 : " To make brandy imitate the French. Oil of cassia, bit- 
ter almonds, tincture of isponia, venella, &c." 

Page 83 : " To make spirits over proof. Soap and potashes. 



76 ADULTERATION OF MALT LIQUORS. 






whether impure water be or be not use d in brewing 
and though it were conceded that such liquor were 



Page 127: " To imitate port wine, Cider brandy nnd a little port 
made rough with certain ingredients, &c. M 

Page 144: To sweeten casks. "Boil fresh cow dung, and soak the 
casks with it." 

Page 151 : To strengthen gin. " Be particular in the quantity used. 
The spirits will appear stronger than they really are by five per cent. 
Blue stone, oil of vitriol, oil of almonds, &c." 

Page 154: Cordial Gin. " Oil of bitter almonds, oil of vitriol, and 
oil of turpentine, &c." 

From a u Treatise on Brewing and Distilling," by Shannon, page 167. 
"It is a custom among retailing distillers, which I have not taken notice 
of in this directory, to put one-third or one-fourth part of proof mo- 
lasses brandy, proportionably to what rum they dispose of; which 
cannot be distinguished except by an extraordinary palate, and does 
not at all lessen the body or quality of the goods, but makes them about 
two shillings a gallon cheaper, and must be well mixed and incorporat- 
ed together in your retailing cask ; but you should keep some of the 
best rum, not adulterated, to please some customers whose judgment 
and palate must be humored," 

* Not that no reason for the agitation of these questions exists, for 
to use the words of a brewer, who, when asked, " Do you know what 
filthy water they use in brewing? " replied, " Oh yes, I know all about 
it, and the more filthy the water the better. In the great brewery in 
which for years I have been employed, the pipes which drew the water 
from the river came in just at the place which received the drainings 
from the horse stables; and there is no such beer in the world as was 
made from it." il But is not fermentation a purifying process, and does 
it not remove from the beer whatever is hurtful, filthy, or disgusting ? 
This question has received, from one competent to reply, the following 
answer: " The tartaric acid which may cause the gout in wine, the poi- 
sonous qualitios of the hop, the henbane, the cocculus indicus, mix 
vomica, grains of paradise, copperas, or opium used, are not removed 
by fermentation from beer, nor is the foul matter of animal substances 
put in to promote the fermentation and vegetation of the malt by any 
means fully removed."— Journal, A. T IT., for 1837, p. 103. 



TESTIMONY. 77 

good, very good for everybody ; still there are other 
things, to wit: henbane, mix vomica, cocculus indi- 
cus, sulphuric acid, and numerous other abomina- 
tions which are not a whit the less hurtful on that 
account. 

This is not mere declamation, but known and 
established truth.* But enough of mere malt liquor. 
And as to wine, — although the Bible did authorize 



* In S. Child's Practical Treatise on Brewery, 11th edition, after 
enumerating the numerous ingredients for brewing porter, p. 7, he 
says : " However much they may surprise, however disagreeable or 
pernicious they may appear, he has always found them requisite in 
brewing porter, and he thinks they must be invariably used by those 
who wish to continue the taste, flavor and appearance of the beer." 

Page 16 : " Though acts have been passed to prevent porter brewers 
from using many of them, yet the author can affirm from experience 
that he could never produce the present flavored porter without 
them. 

Again page 16: " The intoxicating qualities of porter are to be 
ascribed to the various drugs intermixed with it. It is evident that 
some porte? is more heady than others, and it arises from the greater 
or less quantity of stupefying ingredients. Malt, to produce intoxica- 
tion, must be used in such large quantities as would very much dimin- 
ish, if not totally exclude, the brewer's profit." 

The ingredients mentioned by Child, and also by Maurice, and by 
the author of the " Home and Country Brewer," are various narcotics 
for producing stupefacation. 

Alum, hops, calamas, cocculus indicus, coriander, capsicum, caraway 
seed, ginger, gentian, grains of paradise, nux vomica, quassia, salt, 
copperas, tobacco, opium, lime, soda, &c. 

u Jackson, an English chemist, of notorious memory, first fell upon 
the plan of brewing from various drugs ; and from that time to this 
there have been various written directions, and receipt books for using 
these preparations. And agents are to be found in England who sell 
the article manufactured for brewera only." — Accum on Poisons, 117. 



78 TESTIMONY. 

the use in Palestine, of certain kinds of wine, there 
were even in Palestine, certain other kinds of wine, 
of which it did not authorize the use. 



" To give beer a cauliflower head, beer heading is used, composed 
of green vitriol, alum, and salt. Alum gives likewise a smack of age 
to beer, and is penetrating to the palate." — J. Childs-. 

Page 23 : u To make new beer older, use oil of vitriol." — /. Childs. 

Page 1S3 : " Hops. The intense bitter some hops afford, act very 
injuriously on the stomach ; it is a fact noticed by ancients and 
moderns, that those persons who accustom themselves to intense 
bitters generally die suddenly." — Journal; A. T. U., pp. 18 and 19, 
for 1S38. 

Accum or Culinary Poisons, Philadelphia, 1820, p. 113, says: "Malt 
liquor, and particularly porter, is among those articles in the manufac- 
ture of which the greatest frauds are committed." 

Page 115 : " Unwholsome ingredients are used by fraudulent brew- 
ers, and very deleterious substances are also vended both to brewers 
and retailers for adulterating beer." 

Page 13 6: u The fraud of imparting to beer and ale an intoxicating 
quality by narcotic substances, appears to have flourished in 1806. 
And during the French war more cocculus indicus was imported in five 
years than had been before in the course of twelve years." 

Page 134: " Quassia chips are used as a substitute for hops. Vast 
quantities of the shavings of this wood are sold in a half torrified and 
ground state, to disguise its obvious character, and to prevent its being 
recognized among the waste materials of the brewers." 

Page 132 : " Wormwood has likewise been used by fraudulent 
brewers." 

Page 131 : " Green vitriol, alum, and salt are used to give a head to 
beer. And the retailers frequently adulterate with isinglass, molasses, 
gentian root, and mixing beer and porter together." 

Page 135: "Capsicum and grains of paradise, two highly acrid 
substances, are employed to give a pungent taste to weak, insipid 
beer. Ginger root, coriander seeds, orange peel, &c. It will be 
noticed that while some of the sophistications are comparatively 
harmless, others are effected by substances deleterious to health. 



TESTIMONY. 79 

But we cannot enter on the discussion of this topic 
now. It must remain for a future opportunity. 

In the meantime let us reflect on what has already 
been said, and so far as truth has been made apparent 
reduce the same to practice. 



( But all are used for fraudulent purposes to deceive the people and 
cheat them out of their money)." 

Page 148 : After mentioning many ways of sophistication, he says: 
" To make the beer entire, or old, the brewers now need none of these, 
for by an admixture of sulphuric acid, it is done in an instant." 

Page 149: "Alkaline earth, or alkali oyster shell powder, and sub- 
carbonate of potash, are used to make sour, stale beer, into mild." 

Page 150: " To increase the intoxicating qualities of beer, cocculus 
indicus, opium, nux vomica, and extract of poppies are used." — Jour- 
nal A. T. U. 1838, p. 50. 

The effect of beer drinking corresponds to the nature of the article 
drank. Says Dr. Gordon, in his examination before alluded to : 
"The mortality among the coal whippers who are brought to the Lon- 
don hospital is frightful. The moment these beer drinkers are attacked 
with any acute disease they are unable to bear depletion and die di- 
rectly." " Medical men," says Dr. Gordon, *' are familiar with the fact 
that confirmed beer drinkers in London can scarcely scratch their fin- 
ger without risk of their lives. A copious London beer drinker is all 
one vital part. He wears his heart on his sleeve, bare to a death wound 
even from a rusty nail or the claw of a cat. Sir Ashley Cooper, on 
one occasion, was called to a drayman ( the draymen have the unlimi- 
ted privilege of the brewer's cellar), who had suffered an injury in 
his finger from a small splinter of a stave. Suppuration had taken 
place ; this distinguished surgeon opened the small abscess with his 
lancet. Upon retiring he found he had forgotten his lancet case; on 
returning therefore he found his patient in a dying state. Every medi- 
cal man in London," concludes this writer, " dreads above all things a 
beer drinker for his patient" 

NOTT. 



LECTUKE No. III. 



THE BIBLE. 

The kind of wine in question — The authority of Scripture — Wine 
of different kinds, good and bad — Spoken of by sacred writers — 
Grape juice called wine — Good wine — Better than after fermenta- 
tion — If not wine, but grape juice out of which wine is made, 
and called wine figuratively, then is wine not commended, but 
grape juice merely — The wine 'of the press and vat in Palestine 
slightly fermented — What is meant by unfermented wine as here 
used, 

Having urged, in the preceding lecture, the discon- 
tinuance of the use of all intoxicating liquors as a 
beverage, on account of the danger which attends 
such use, we adverted to the following reply: 

"Though we and ours make use of intoxicating liquors, 
they are fermented, not distilled liquors. Rum, Gin, 
Brandy, and those other noxious products of the stilly 
have long since been relinquished. And surely, mere malt 
liquor, when used in moderation, cannot injure any one , 
and as to nine, the Bible sanctioned its use in Palestine, 
and still sanctions its use." 

The pertinence and sufficiency of this reply in 
relation to distilled liquors, and in relation to fer- 
mented liquors, so far as malt liquors are concerned, 
80 



THE BIBLE. 81 

have already been considered. And as to the assump- 
tion concerning wine, we have said: 

That although the Bible did authorize the use of cer- 
tain wines in Palestine, there were even in Palestine, cer- 
tain other v:ines of v:hich it did, not authorize the use; 
and this position is what now remains to be ex- 
plained and verified. 

Far be it from me to promulgate or defend opin- 
ions contrary to the announcements of the Bible. 
The Bible is at once the unerring standard of faith, 
as well as the authoritative rule of life. I am aware 
that there are those who read, nay, who study the 
Bible, who are, notwithstanding, not learners, but 
teachers of both faith and practice. Men who bring 
their wit and- learning and taste to bear authorita- 
tively on that sacred volume, and who sit, and dare 
to sit in judgment on its doctrines and on its pre- 
cepts. Not so the true disciple. He comes to the 
Bible, as to an authoritative and unerring teacher, 
and he brings along with him an enlightened faith, 
and a subdued understanding, and he sits down to 
his prescribed task with the docility of a child, and 
the engagedness of a learner. He pretends not to 
know, beforehand, what will be its counsel ; much 
less does he pretend to prescribe what it ought to be. 
On the contrary, he attends to its several announce- 
ments as so many oracles from heaven, and surrend- 
ering all his pride and all his prepossessions says from 
the bottom of his heart, as he turns its hallow T ed 

pages: "SpeakLord, for thy servant heareth." 
4* 



82 SUPPOSED SANCTION. 

We may err in our interpretations of the language 
of the Bible, but the Bible itself never errs; and in 
nothing, as is believed has its import been more 
misapprehended than in the countenance it has some- 
times been supposed to give to the use of intoxicating 
liquors as a beverage. This supposed license, has 
arrayed many good men on the side of the moderate 
use of intoxicating drinks, but against total absti- 
nence ; because total abstinence, as sometimes taught, 
has appeared to them not in accordance with the 
teachings of the Bible, for which they entertain so 
profound and so becoming a reverence — a reverence 
too seldom met with, and which cannot be too highly 
commended — a reverence to be regarded as favorable, 
and not adverse to the ultimate and abiding triumph 
of the temperance reformation. For those men 
who, having carried forward this reformation on the 
acknowledged principles of the Bible, up to the limit 
believed by them to be prescribed by the Bible, refuse 
to advance beyond that limit, are the men on w 7 hom 7 
during the fluctuatien of a fickle and changeful 
public opinion, reliance may most confidently be 
placed for the permanent maintenance of total absti- 
nence, if it shall eventually be made to appear that 
the Bible sanctions such abstinence— as made to ap- 
pear it will be — if, indeed, it does sanction it. 

Truth is mighty, and where free discussion is 
allowed, will, despite even of the errors of its advo- 
cates, ultimately prevail. Nor has anything hitherto 
contributed so much to alarm the fears and combine 
the influence of these revered and wakeful conserva- 



IS THE BIBLE INCONSISTENT? 83 

tors of the moralities of our religion, as the occa- 
sional enforcement of total abstinence, on principles 
rather infidel than Christian, and with an apparent 
design to compel acquiescence, whether the Bible 
should be found to sanction such abstinence or not. 

But if the ultimate appeal for the decision of the 
question is to the Bible, how can it be considered 
any longer an open question ; for in that case what 
room is there even for debate ? 

Is it to be denied that wine is spoken of in the 
Bible, in terms of commendation ; that it is em- 
ployed as a symbol of mercy ; that it was offered in 
sacrifice ; that it was distributed to the guests at the 
Passover; at the Supper of our Lord, and at the 
Marriage of Cana in Galilee ? No, this is not to be 
denied. As little, however, is it to be denied, that 
it is also spoken of in terms of reprobation ; that it 
is employed as a symbol of wrath, forbidden to Naz- 
arites, forbidden to Kings : that to look upon it, 
even, is forbidden, and that it is declared that they 
w T ho are deceived thereby are not wise. 

What shall we say to this ? Can the same thing 
in the same state be good and bad, a symbol of wrath, 
a symbol or mercy, a thing to be sought after, and 
a thing to be avoided ? Certainly not ! 

And is the Bible then inconsistent with itself? 
No, it is not, and this seeming inconsistency will 
vanish, and the Bible will be, not only, but will 
appear to be in harmony with itself, in harmony with 
history, with science, and with the providence of 
God, if, on examination, it shall be found that the 
Nott. 



84 WINE, A GENERIC TERM. 

kinds or states of vinous beverage referred to, under 
the name of wine, were as unlike in their nature or 
effects, as were those mercies and judgments for 
which the same were respectively employed as sym- 
bols, or as were those terms of praise or dispraise by 
which the same were respectively indicated. 

No less than nine words are employed in the 
Hebrew Bible to express the different kinds of 
vinous beverage formerly in use ; all of which kinds 
of beverage are expressed in our English version by 
the single term "wine," or by that term in connec- 
tion with some other term expressive of quality. * 

The term wine, therefore, as used in our English 
Bible, is to be regarded as a generic term ; compre- 
hending different kinds of beverage, and of very 
different qualities ; some of which kinds w r ere good, 
some bad ; some to be used frequently and freely, 
some seldom and sparingly; and some to be utterly 
and at all times avoided. 

By a mere comparison of the passages in which 
the term wine occurs, this will be rendered probable. 



* These terms are, Yayiri^ a generic term, comprehending wine of 
all kinds. Tirosh, also a generic term, denoting the fruit of the vine 
in the cluster, the press and the vat, either in the solid form of grapes, 
or of grnpe-juice expressed, (i. e.) new wine. Avcis } the fresh juice 
of the grape, and even of other fruit. Sobhe, inspissated wine, corres- 
ponding to the Latin sapa, or the Greek sireaum and hepsema. Hamar, 
unmingled wine, wine red, thick, turbid. Mesech, mixed wine ; 
whether with water or with drugs. Shemarin, lees of wine, and some- 
times preserves or jellies. Ebhhha, cooked wine, or grape cake. 
Shechar, sweet drink, from the palm or other trees, but not from the 
vine. 



DIFFERENT SORTS OF WINE. 85 

For it were difficult to believe that the wine by 
which Noah was dishonored; by which Lot was 
defiled ; the wine which caused prophets to err in 
judgment, and priests to stumble and fall ; the wine 
which occasions wo and sorrow, and wounds without 
cause ; wine of which he who is deceived thereby, is 
not wise ; wine which Solomon styles a mocker, and 
which is alluded to by One who is greater than Solo- 
mon, as a symbol of wrath ; it were difficult to 
believe that this wine—the wine mingled by harlots 
and sought by libertines, was the very wints 
which wisdom mingles ; to which wisdom invites ; 
wine which priests offered in sacrifice ; evangelists 
dispensed at communion-tables, and which, making 
glad the heart of man, was a fit emblem of the mer- 
cies of God, 

There is a wine of some sort spoken of very fre- 
quently in the Bible, with express disapprobation, or 
in connection with drunken feasts, or as an emblen 
of temporal and eternal judgment. And there is 
also a wine spoken of perhaps as frequently with 
express approbation, or in connection with religious 
festivals, or as an emblem of temporal and eternal 
blessings. 

That wines of such different qualities, and pre- 
sented in such different aspects and even in such 
frequent and frightful contrast, were one and the 
same article, in one and the same state, would seem, 
even though history, both sacred and profane, had 
been silent, quite incredible. How much more so 
now, that in place of silence, history, both sacred 



S6 TEXTS IN WHICH GOOD WINE IS SPOKEN OF. 

and profane, hath spoken ; and spoken, not of their 
identity, but known and marked dissimilarity. 

It is not to be denied that the Bible makes a dis- 
tinction in the kinds of wine of which it speaks. It 
allude not to the w T ine as medicine, but as a beverage . 
Wine as beverage, was, in the language of the Bible, 
either good or bad. 

By good wine, I mean wine that in the use is 
beneficial to the bodies or the souls of men. By bad 
wine, I mean wine which is injurious to the one or 
the other, or both. Wine which (when used, not 
excessively, but moderately as beverage) is injurious 
either to the physical, intellectual, or moral consti- 
tution of man, is bad wine. It is with this distinc- 
tion between wines that this discussion is concerned — 
a distinction, recognized in those terms of praise or 
dispraise in which the Bible speaks of or alludes to 
different kinds of wine, as either actually existing in 
the concrete, or as assumed to exist in the abstract. 
The truth of this will be apparent, by a comparison 
(in the subjoined schedule) of a few out of many 
passages that might have been selected. 

TEXTS IN WHICH GOOD W^INE IS SPOKEN OF, OR 
ALLUDED TO. 

Gen., xxvii., 2S: Therefore Grod give thee of the 
dew of heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and 
plenty of corn, and (tirosh) wine." 

Num., xxviii., 12 : " All the best of the oil, and all 
the best of the (tirosh) wine, and of the wheat, first 



TEXTS IN WHICH GOOD WINE IS SPOKEN OP, 87 

fruits of them which they shall offer unto the Lord, 
them have I given thee." 

Deut., xiv., 24, 25, 26: " And if the way be too 
long for thee, then thou shalt turn it into money, and 
thou shalt bestow that money for whatsoever thy 
soul lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for (yayin) 
wine." 

Psalm civ., lb : "And (yayin) wine that maketh 
glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to 
shine, and bread which strengthened man's heart." 

Zech., ix., 17 : " Corn shall make the young men 
cheerful, and (tirosh) new wine the maids." 

Prov., ix., 1, 4, 5 : " Wisdom hath killed her beasts; 
she hath mingled her wine (yayin) ; she saith, come 
eat of my bread, and drink of the (yayin) wine I have 
mingled." 

Cant., v., 1: " I have drunk my (yayin) wine with 
my milk ; eat O friends ; drink ; yea, drink abun- 
dantly, beloved." 

Isaiah, xxvii., 2 : " In that day sing you unto her, 
a vineyard of red (yayin) wine. I, the Lord, do keep 
it. I will water it every moment, lest any hurt it. 
I will keep it night and day." 

Gen., xlix., 11: u He washeth his garments in 
(yayin) wine, and his clothes in the blood of grapes. 

Gen., xlviii., 33: "I have caused (yayin) to fall 
from the wine press, none shall tread with shouting." 

Deut., vii., 13 : " He will love thee and bless thee ; 
and bless the fruit of thy land ; thy corn and thy 
(tirosh) wine," 



8<9 TEXTS IN WHICH BAD WINE IS SPOKEN OF. 

Luke, xxii., IS : " For I say unto you, T will not 
drink of the fruit of the vine, till the kingdom of 
God shall come." 

Mark, xiv., 25 : " Verily I say unto you, I will 
drink no more of the fruit of the vine, until that day 
that I shall drink it new in the kingdom of God." 

1 Cor., x., 16: " The cup of blessing which we bless 
is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?" 

Isaiah, lxv., S: "Thus saith the Lord, as the (tirosh) 
new wine is found in the cluster, and one saith, des- 
troy it not, for a blessing is in it, so will I do for my 
servants." 

TEXTS IN WHICH BAD WINE IS SPOKEN OF, OR AL- 
LUDED TO, 

Deut., xxxii., 33 : " For their vine is the vine of 
Sodam, and the fields of Gomorrah. Their (yayin) 
wune is the poison of dragons, and the cruel venom 
of asps." 

Amos, ii., 6, 8 : " Thus saith the Lord, for three 
transgressions of Israel, and for four, I will not turn 
away the punishment thereof. Because, * * * 
they lay themselves down upon clothes laid to pledge 
upon eveiy altar, and drink the (yayin) wine of the 
condemned in the house of their God." 

Mark, xv., 23: "And they gave Mm to drink (oinou) 
wine mingled with myrrh; but he received it not." 

Prov., xxiii., 20, 30, 3 i, 32 : " Who hath woe : who 
hath sorrow; who hath contention ; who hath bab- 
bling ; who hath wounds without cause ; w T ho hath 
redness of eyes ? They that tarry long at the ( yayin) 



BAD WINE. 89 

wine : they that go to seek (mesech) mixed wine ; look 
not thou upon the (yayin) wine when it is red ; 
when it giveth his color in the cup ; when it moveth 
itoelf aright. At the last, it biteth like a serpent, 
and stingeth like an adder." 

Isaiah, v.. 22 : " Woe unto them that are mighty 
to drink (yayin) wine, and men of strength to mingle 
strong drink. " 

Prov., xxiii.j 30 : " Look thou not upon the 
(yayin) wine when it is red ; when it giveth his 
color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright." 

Psalm lxxv., 8 : " In the land of the Lord there is 
a cup, and the (yayin) wine is red ; it is full of mix- 
ture, and he poureth oat the same, but the dregs 
thereof, all the wicked of the earth shall wring them 
out, and drink them." 

Psalm lx., 3: " Thou hast showed thy people 
hard things; thou hast made us drink the (yayin) 
wine of astonishment." 

Jer., li., 7 : " The nations have drunk of her 
(yayin) wine, therefore the nations are mad." 

Rev., xiv., 10 : " The same shall drink of the (oinon) 
wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out with- 
out mixture into the cup of his indignation." 

Jer., xxv M 15: "For thus saith the Lord, * * 
take the (yayin) wine cup of this fury at my hand, 
and cause all the nations to whom I send thee, to 
drink it." 

Prov., xx., 1 : " (Yayin) Wine is a mocker, 
(shechar) strong drink is raging, and whoever is de- 
ceived thereby is not wise." 



90 DISTINCTION BETWEEN WINES. 

The above are samples merely of passages (which 
might if necessary be extended) in which wines are 
distinguished, according to their qualities, among 
which are good and bad ; wine that is a blessing, 
and wine, a curse ; wine, to be presented at sacrifice, 
and wine, that might not be drank in the house of 
the Lord ; wine, occasioning joy and gladness, and 
wine, occasioning wo and sorrow: wine, of which 
guests were to drink abundantly, and wine, not to be 
drank at all ; wine, the emblem of heavenly joy, 
and wine, the symbol of endless misery ; red wine, 
the special care of the Almighty ; and red wine, 
that might not be looked upon ; wine, signifying the 
blood of Christ, and wine, a mocker. 

In the view of these texts, and texts like these, 
though ignorant of the fact that different kinds 
of wine exist now, who could doubt of their exist- 
ence formerly, or question whether wines presented 
in such frequent and fearful contrast, or referred to 
respectively in such marked terms of praise or dis- 
praise, were not after all one and the same article, 
in the same state ? 

Here then, on this broad distinction between good 
and bad wine, recognized in the sacred writings, we 
take our stand. And be it remembered, it is not 
against the moderate use (in ordinary times) of good, 
healthful w r ine, which the Bible sanctions and em- 
ploys as an emblem of mercy, but against the use 
of bad deleterious wine which the Bible reprobates 
and employs as an emblem of wrath, that we array 
ourselves. 
Nott 



GREAT NUMBER OF VARIETIES. 91 

The wine, and the only wine that we abjure, is 
wine abjured by the Bible, abjured by reason ; wine, 
which in the use as a beverage, enervates and dis- 
eases the body, depraves and crazes the mind, and 
exerts over the whole man a morbid and a mortal 
influence ; in one word, wine containing poison not 
onty, but containing it in sufficient quantity, also, 
when used as beverage, to disturb the healthy action 
of the system : and such are the wines generally in 
use in this country. Nor is it material to the ques- 
tion now at issue whether that poison^be generated 
in the juice of the grape by fermentation, or super- 
added by drugging. 

Wine, in which poison is contained in the quantity 
and intensity indicated, no matter how generated or 
whence derived, will be found to receive as little 
advocacy from Revelation as reason ; nor will the 
drinker of such wine (as the light of truth advances) 
be able ultimately to find protection under the mere 
shelter of name. 

That the term wine is always used, either by 
sacred or profane writers, to indicate the same bever- 
age or to indicate the beverage for which we now 
use it, is an error which can not fail, on full exami- 
nation, to be corrected. 

Pliny, who was contemporary with the apostles, 
says (Lib. xiv., chap. 22), as we have already seen, 
" that the ingenuity of man had produced ninety-five 
different kinds of wine ; and if the species of these 
genera were enumerated, they would amount to 
almost double that number." 



92 INTOXICATING WINE, DEFINITION OF. 

Virgil, who lived about the same time, having enu- 
merated several kinds of wine then in use, sums up 
what he had to say, by declaring the residue innu- 
merable. Nor does the fact in question depend on 
the testimony of Pliny and Virgil only. Horace, 
Cato, Columella, Plutarch, and many other ancient 
writers, have confirmed what Pliny and Virgil stated. 
They enumerated a great variety of wine, and even 
furnish recipes for making very many of the varieties 
enumerated. Among which varieties are wine made 
from millet, dates, and the lotus tree ; from figs, 
beans, pears, all sorts of apples, mulberries, pine- 
apples ; the leaves, berries and twigs of myrtle ; 
from rue, asparagus, savory, &c. Spiced and aromatic 
wines, made from a composition of spices, from myrrh, 
Celtic nard, bitumen. (Pliny, chap. 26, book xiv.) 

Of the different kinds of wine formerly in use, 
some were medicinal, nutritive ; some refreshing, 
exhilarating ; some stupefactive, and some intoxica- 
ting. 

By intoxicating wine as used in this discussion, is 
meant not merely ivine containing poison, but containing it 
in sufficient quantity and intensity, when used as beverage, 
to poison those who use it. 

By poison, I mean anything w r hich injures the 
organism, interrupts its healthy action, producing 
local or general derangement in the system, and 
which, if taken in quantities sufficiently large, or in 
smaller quantities sufficiently long, will impair the 
reason, impair the health, and even extinquish life 
itself. 



FERMENTATION. 93 

All this intoxicating liquors will do : what more 
can be said of arsenic, or even prussic acid? 

Not to mention remote effects, intoxicating liquors 
operate with sudden and mighty energy on the 
whole vascular and nervous system, and especially 
on the brain, exciting usually to folly, often to mad- 
ness, sometimes even to death. 

The poison contained in intoxicating liquors is 
either generated in the liquors by fermentation, or 
superadded by drugging. 

Fermentation is a chemical process, of which 
there are several kinds, to- wit : the vinous, the ace- 
tous, and the putrefactive. 

The elements of fermentation are sacchrine mat- 
ter, barm or yeast. 

The conditions of fermentation are contact, fluidity 
and temperature. The degree of temperature requi- 
site for vinous fermentation is from sixty to seventy 
or seventy-five degrees Fahrenheit. 

If the temperature be increased, acetous fermenta- 
tion follows the vinous. 

Grapes and apples, as w r ell as certain other vege- 
table productions, contain the elements of fermenta- 
tion in the requisite proportion to secure the process, 
provided the requisite fluidity, contact and tempera- 
ture exist. 

The vinous fermentation, with which this discus- 
sion is principally concerned, generates alcohol, one 
of the most virulent poisons, and a poison contained 
in many, if not most, of the intoxicating liquors now 
in use. 



94 DISTILLATION DRUGGING — HOMER. 

Distillation is a modern art, and the difference 
between fermented and distilled liquors consists in 
this : that in the former, a portion, though a very- 
small portion, of solid vegetable matter is held in 
solution in the alcohol and water; whereas in the 
latter alcohol and water exist alone. 

Alcohol, however, is not the only poison contained 
in intoxicating liquors ; others are added by drug- 
ging. 

Drugging is an artificial process, by which for- 
eign ingredients of any kind in any quantity are 
added to liquors at pleasure. . 

Pliny affirms that calamus and ground oak, to- 
gether with numerous other ingredients, were added 
to the juice of the grape, to render it aromatic, me- 
dicinal, or stupefying. (Book xiv., chap. 16.) 

Homer, who lived long before the Christian era, 
frequently mentions the potent drugs mingled with 
wine, in those early times. 

The potion which Helen prepared for Telemachus 
and his companions was at once soothing and stupe- 
factive. To impart these qualities, he says, " she 
mingled in her wine delirious drugs of power to 
assuage grief, to allay rage, and to become the obliv- 
ious antidote of misfortune." Elsewhere he says, 
tl# at Ulysses took in his boat " a goat-skin of sweet 
black wine, a divine drink, which Maron, Apollo's 
priest, had given him, a beverage that was as sweet 
as honey, that was imperishable, that when drank 
was diluted with twenty parts water, and that from 
it a sweet and divine odor exhaled." 



PLINY THE HEBREWS, 95 

Says Pliny (Lib. xiv., chap. 5), " Androcydes, a 
physician renowned for wisdom, addressing Alexan- 
der, said, " King ! remember that when you are 
about to drink the blood of the earth, hemlock is 
poison to man, and wine is hemlock." 

*Nor was this process of drugging confined to 
ancient Pagan nations. Says Bishop Lowth, on 
Isaiah,!., 22: " the Hebrews generally, by mixed 
wine, mean wine made inebriating by the adoption of 
higher and more powerful ingredients, such as spices, 
myrrh, mandragora, opiates, and other strong drugs. 
Such were the exhilarating or rather Stupefying in- 
gredients which Helen mixed in the bowl together 
with the wine for her guests, oppressed with grief, 
to raise their spirits, the composition of which she 
had learned from Egypt." 

Thus the drunkard is described, as one who seeks 
" mixed wine," and is " mighty to mingle strong 
drink." 

And hence the Psalmist took the highly poetical 
and sublime image of the cup of God's wrath, called 
by Isaiah, " the cup of trembling," causing intoxica- 
tion and stupefaction, containing, as St. John (Rev., 
xiv., 10,) expresses in Greek, the Hebrew idea, with 
the utmost precision, though with a seeming contra- 
diction in the terms " kekerasmenon akraton" mixed, 
unmixed wine. " In the hand of Jehovah," saith the 
Psalmist, Psalm Ixxv., 8, "there is a cup, the wine 
is turbid, it is full of mixed liquor he poureth out of 
it. Verily the dregs thereof (the thickest sediment 
of the strong ingredients merged in it) all the 
Ndtt, 



96 MIXED WINE GIVEN TO MALEFACTORS. 

ungodly of the earth shall wring them out and drink 
them." 

Stupefying wines were given by the ancients to 
condemned criminals, to render them less sensible to 
the agonies of death. Of such wine, it was not 
allowable for Israelites in their solemn assemblies to 
drink ; an offence with which they are reproached. 
Amos, ii, 8 : " they lay themselves down upon clothes 
laid to pledge by every altar, and they drink the 
wine of the condemned in the house of their God." 

Dr. A. Clark, in his commentary, says : " Inebri- 
ating drinks were given to condemned prisoners, to 
render them less sensible to the torture they endured 
when dying." This custom is alluded to in Proverbs, 
xxxi., 6 : " Give strong drink to him that is ready to 
perish," i. e., who is condemned to death, "and wine 
to him who is bitter of soul, because he is just going 
to suffer the punishment of death ; " and thus the 
Eabbins understand it. 

It is asserted in the Talmud that this drink con- 
sisted of wine mixed with frankincense, and was 
given to criminals immediately before execution. It 
is moreover recorded of our Saviour, that " they gave 
him to drink wine mingled with myrrh, but he re- 
ceived it not." Allusion is made to these mixed 
wines in Lam., hi., 15 : " He hath filled me with bit- 
terness, he hath made me drunken with wormwood." 
In Psalm lxxv., 8, it is said that " In the hand of the 
Lord is a cup, and the wine is red, it is full of mix- 
ture." Isaiah speaks of " a cup of trembling and 
giddiness." In Proverbs we read of "mixed wine," of 



WINES MIXED — BIBLE INJUNCTIONS. 97 

soporific wines, of which kings might not drink, lest 
they should " forget the law ; M the same to be given, 
as above stated, to those of a heavy heart, that they 
might forget their sorrows. 

Thus apparent is it that foreign ingredients were 
formerly added to wines to render them intoxicating, 
many of which were the most potent poisons. - And 
it is also apparent that these were wines disapproved 
of by the Bible, and in reference to which, not tem- 
perance, but abstinence, total, perpetual abstinence 
was enjoined. 

Now, were these wines repudiated because they 
were mixed, or because they were bad, soporific, 
oblivious, stupefactive? Not the former, surely, for 
there were mixed wines deemed worthy of commen- 
dation, and such were wines mingled by Wisdom for 
her guests. And if the latter, then deleterious wine, 
irrespective of the manner in which it had been ren- 
dered deleterious, is in effect repudiated by the Bible. 
But wine containing poison in sufficient quantity to 
produce intoxication, when used as beverage, is dele- 
terious wine, and ought not, therefore, on Bible prin- 
ciples, to be used. 

However becoming and even obligatory total 

abstinence from all vinous beverage, at a time like 

the present, and in a country where its use and the 

use of kindred stimulants has been carried to such 

criminal excess, it is not to be understood that, under 

other circumstances, in other times, good nutritious 

unintoxicating wine might not be temperately drank 

with innocence. 
5 



98 BLOOD OF THE GRAPE, 

But is there any such wine ? There is ; for such 
is ever the fruit of the vine in the original state. 

That the fruit of the vine, in the form of grape 
JUICE as expressed from the cluster, has been 

FROM REMOTE ANTIQUITY AND STILL IS USED AS A 
BEVERAGE, IS ABUNDANTLY IN PROOF. 

Of G-aal and his brethren, it is said (Judges, ix., 27) 
that "they went out into the field and gathered in 
their grapes, and did eat and drink." Of what did 
Gaal and his brethren eat and drink ? Doubtless, as 
the text intimates, of the grapes which they had gath- 
ered. For be it remembered, grapes furnish to those 
who cultivate them, both food and drink. 

In connection with the blessings conferred on Jacob 
(among which are honey, oil, butter, milk, &c), it is 
said (Deut., xxxii., 14,) that he drank ("dhamgnenabh 
hhamer") the pure blood of the grape. In the Vulgate 
this is translated ("et sanguinem uv<% bibisti merum" in 
the Septuaguint "oinon") " and the blood of the grape 
thou didst drink wine^' and Dr. A. Clarke says that 
" blood," as used here, is synonymous with "juice" 
The allusion probably was to the simple must of red 
grapes — the most approved grapes. Among the 
principal things enumerated as needful to man, are 
"water, flour, honey, milk, and thebloodof the grape ," 
meaning, in the language of the ancients, grape-juice., 
That the ancients thus understood the terms, there 
can be no doubt. In the Apocrypha (1 Mac, vi., 34) 
it is written : "and to the end that they might pro- 
voke the elephants to fight, they showed them the 






EXHUMED BACCHUS. 



99 



blood of grapes and mulberries;" and in Ecclesias- 
ticus (xv.), " and finishing the service of the altar, 
that he (high priest) might adorn the offering of the 
Most High, he stretched out his hand to the cup and 
poured of the blood of the grape." 

It is *a recorded fact, that, in remote antiquity, 
grapes were brought to the table and the juice there 




expressed for immediate use. An instance occurs in 
Pharaoh's cup-bearer ; the recently exhumed Bac- 



100 FRESH GRAPE JUICE — AUTHORITY. 

chus, holding a bunch of grapes in his hand and 
pressing the juice into the vase, standing on a pedes* 
tali is in evidence of the existence of such a usage.* 
In keeping with the office here assigned to the 
reputed inventorof wine is a scene described between 

him and a Tyrian shepherd (Achilles Taiius, lib. xi., 

chap, ii.) Bacchus having been hospitably entertained 
by this shepherd with his food and water, presented him 
in return witha cup Idled with fresh grape juice; on 
tasting which, the shepherd exclaimed, "Whence, 
my guest, have you this purple water, or where in 

the world have veu SO sweet a blood ? It surely is 

not from that which ilows through the land! Water 
affects (goes into) i he breast with lit t le pleasure ; this, 
however, applied to the mouth, gratifies the nostrils, 
and though it be cold to the touch, yet when it is 
imbibed, it raises throughout an agreeable warmth." 

Bacchus replied, " This autumnal water (alluded to 
the period when grapes were ripe,) and blood flows 
out of branches;" and having led the shepherd to a 
vine (and pointed to the pendent clusters), he said, 
"This is the water, but these are the fountains." 

"Grapes" (says Sir Edward Barry, speaking of 
the ancients), 4t became at first a usual article oftheir 
aliment, and the recently expressed juice of the grape 
a coloring drink." 

The Pylean king who lived to so great an age is 
spoken of by Juvenal (lib. x., line 250) as one ik Quive 
novum toties mustum libit;" " Who so often drank fresh 



* Lib. Useful Knowledge, Pompeii, vul. xi., p. 213. 



BUI IS GRAPE JUICE WINE? 101 

must." And it is recorded of the noble Venetian 
Cornaro, who lived to so great an age, that he found 
by experience, that as soon as lieeonld procure fresh 
grape juice, it; presently restored him to the health 
he had lost while drinking old wine. 

Columella says, (book iii., chap. 2), " the vine is 
planted either for food to eat, or liquor to drink." 
Malic _iet says, in the Koran, "of grapes ye obtain 
an inebriating liquor, and also good nourishment." 

From a quotation in Com. Michaelis, it appears that 
the Mahornedans of Arabia press the juice of the 
grape through a linen cloth, pour it into a cup and 
drink it as Pharaoh did ; and Captain Charles Stewart 
says, "that the unfermented juice of the grape and 
palm tree are a delightful beverage, in India, Persia, 
Palestine, and other adjacent countries." 

To this use of grape juice, Milton alludes in the 
following w r ords : 

M For drink, the grape 
She crushes - — inoffensive must." 

And in Gray we meet with a similar allusion — 

u Scent the new fragrance of the breathing rose, 
And quaff the pendant vintage as it grows." 

It were easy to multiply authorities — but it is 
unnecessary. That the fruit of the vine, as expressed 
from the cluster, in the form of fresh grape juice, 
has been from remote antiquity used as beverage, is 
not to be denied. 

But is such grape juice wine ? 

That is the question — a question which must be 
answered in the affirmative, if either Moses or the 
prophets are to be accredited. 



102 SO DECLARED. 

Among the blessings granted to Jacob, it is recor 
ded,as we have seen, that he "drank the pure blood 
of the grape;" that by the "pure blood of the 
grape " was meant wine, is admitted by Dr. Adam 
Clarke and other distinguished commentators. The 
passage, as we have also seen, is even rendered in 
the Vulgate, " Et sanguinem uvce bibisti merum " — 
that is, and of the blood of the grape thou didst drink 
(oinon, Septuagint,) wine. 

Now, if the beverage of which Jacob drank, and 
which is so often referred too among enumerated bles- 
sings, was not wine, then the translators of the Sep- 
tuagint, and also of the Yulgate, as well as of the 
English Bible, were mistaken, ; and if they were, and 
if this blood of the grape, declared to be wine by 
patriarchs and prophets; declared to be wine by 
their translators and their commentators ; by men 
belonging to different nations, speaking different lan- 
guages, and living in different ages ; if this blood of 
the grape, after all, be not truly wine, and if some 
other and further process be necessary to convert it 
into wine, what was that process, when or where did 
it take place ; how long did it occupy, or by which 
of the sacred writers has this fact been recorded ? By 
none of them. In relation to each and all these par- 
ticulars the Bible is silent, or rather it speaks only to 
give assurance that none of them were requisite. 

Here we are not left to inference. The sacred 
writers are explicit : This fruit of the vine, in its 
natural state, is, and it is declared to be, "tirosk," 

TO BE " YAYIN," TO BE " AUSIS," AND, TO ADD NO 

more, to be "hhemer ;" all terms rendered oinis in 



SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. 103 

Greek. vrauM or merum in Latin, and wine in 
English. 

Here there can be no mistake. The blood of the 
grape, that is, grape juice in its natural state, is, in 
the judgment of these high authorities, wine ; and it 
is declared to be so : declared to be wine, as expessed 
in the vat ; to be wine in the press, by which it 
is expressed ; wine in the cluster from which it is 
expressed; wine in the vineyard where the cluster 
ripened, and when it was gathered, and to crown the 
evidence, declared to be sweet wine, new wine, and 
wine in the season thereof 

THE FRUIT OF THE VINE IS DECLARED TO BE (tiVOsh) 
WINE, AS EXPRESSED IN THE VAT. 

Joel, ii. 3 24 : "And the floors shall be full of wheat, 
and the vats shall overflow with (in Hebrew, 
'tirosh;' in Greek, 'oinon;' in Latin, 'vino;'* and in 
English) wine."' 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE (tirosh) WINE, IN THE PRESS 
BY WHICH IT WAS EXPRESSED. 

Proverbs, iih, 10: u So shall thy barns be filled 
with plenty, and thy presses burst out with (tirosh, 
oi?w?i, vino) new wine." 



* The Hebrew, Greek and Latin terms in this and the following 
quotations are transferred from the Hebrew Bible, the Septaugint and 
the Vulgate, as tbey exist theie, in the corresponding passages with 
out chancre of case. 



104 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. 

Hosea, ix., 2 : " The floor and the winepress shall 
not feed them, and the (tirosh, oinos, vinum) new wine 
shall fail in her. 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE (tirosh) WINE IN THE CLUSTER 
FROM WHICH IT WAS EXPRESSED. 

Isaiah, Ixv., 8 : " Thus saith the Lord, as the 
ftirosh) new wine is found in the cluster and one 
saith, destroy it not, for a blessing is in it ; so will I 
do for my servants' sakes, that I may not destroy 
them all." 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE (tirosh) WINE IN THE VINEYARD 
WHERE THE CLUSTER IS RIPENED 

Judges, ix., 13 : " And the vine said unto them, 
should I leave my (tirosh, oinon, vinum) wine, which 
cheereth God and man, and go to be promoted over 
the trees." 

Psalms, iv., 7 : " Thou hast put gladness in my 
heart, more than in the time that their corn and (tirosh, 
oinou, vini) wine increased." 

Joel, i., 10 : " The field is wasted, the land mourn- 
eth, for the corn is wasted ; the (tirosh, oinos, vinum) 
new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth." 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE (tirosh) SWEET WINE, NEW WINE, 
AND WINE IN THE SEASON THEREOF. 

Micah, vi., 15 : " Thou shalt sow but thou shalt 
not reap ; thou shalt tread the olives, but thou shalt 
not anoint thee with oil ; and (tirosh, oinou) sweet 
wine, but shalt not drink (yayin, vinum) wine." 



SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. 105 

Isaiah, xxiv., 7 : " The (tirosh, oinos,) new wine 
mourneth, the vine languisheth, all the merry-hearted 
do sigh." 

Haggai, i., 11 : " And I called for a drought upon 
the land, and upon the mountains and upon the corn, 
and upon the (tirosh* oin-on, vinum) new wine, and 
upon the oil, and upon that which the ground 
bringeth forth, and upon men, and upon cattle, and 
upon all the labor of the hands. " 

Zech., ix., 17 i "For how great is his goodness, 
and how great is his beauty ! corn shall make the 
young men cheerful, and (tirosh, oinos, vinum) new 
wine the maids. 5 ' 

Neh,, xiii., 5: "And he had prepared for him a 
great chamber, where aforetime they laid the meat 
offerings, the frankincense and the vessels, and the 
tithes of the corn, the (tirosk, omou, mni) new wine, 
and the oil, which was commanded to be given to 
the Levites, and the singers, and the porters, and the 
offerings of the priests," 

Xeh., xiii., 12 : " Then brought all Judah the tithe 
of the corn and the {tirosh, oinou, vim) new w T ine, 
and the oil unto the treasuries. 

Finally, the fruit of the vine in its natural state is 
declared to be (tirosh) wine, as associated with corn 
and oil, and other products of the fold, and of the 
field, and existing almost, if not always, not in an 
artificial, but in the natural state ; and thus associ- 
ated with corn and other natural productions, as a 
blessing — as first fruits — as tithes — as offerings, — 
as increasing and languishing in the field — as in its 



106 SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE. 

season — as gathered from the field — and with corn 
and (yayi?i) wine. 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE WINE W T HEN ASSOCIATED WITH 
CORN AND OTHER PRODUCTS, IN THEIR NATURAL 
STATE CONSIDERED A BLESSING. 

Gen. xxvii., 28 : " Therefore God give thee of the 
dew of Heaven, and the fatness of the earth, and 
plenty of corn and (tirosh, oinou, vini) wine." 

Gen., xxvii., 37 : " And Isaac answered and said 
unto Esau, behold I have made him thy lord, and all 
his brethren have I given to him for servants ; and 
with corn and (tirosh, oino, vino) w T ine have I sus- 
tained him ; and what shall I do now 7 unto thee, my 
son?" 

Deut., vii., 13 : " And he will love thee * # * he 
w T ill bless the fruit of thy land, thy corn, and thy 
(tirosh^ oinou,) wine, and thine oil," &c. 

Deut., xxviii., 51: " Which also shall not leave 
thee either corn (tirosh, oinon, vinum), wine, or oil," 
&c, "until he have destroyed thee." 

Deut.xxxiii-, 28 : " The fountain of Jacob shall be 
upon a land of corn and (tirosh, oinou, vini) wine, also 
his heaven shall drop down dew." 

Hosea, ii., 8 : "For she did not know that I gave 
her corn and (tirosh, oinon, vinum) wine, and oil, and 
multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared 
for Baal." 

Hosea, ii., 22 : " And the earth shall bear the corn, 
and the (tirosh, oinon, vinum) wine, and the oil," &c. 






SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. 107 

Joel, ii., 19: " Behold I will send you corn and 
(tirosh, oinou, vinum) wine, and oil, and ye shall be 
satisfied therewith." 

2 Kings, xviii., 32 : "Until I come and take you 
away to a land like your own land, a land of corn 
and (tirosh, oinou, vini) wane, a land of bread and vine- 
yards, aland of oil-olive and of honey," &c. 

Isaiah, xxxvi., 17: "Until I come and take you 
away to a land like your own land, a land of corn 
and (tirosh, oinou, vini) wine, a land of bread and 
vineyards." 

Isaiah, IxiL, 8 : " Surely I will no more give thy 
corn to be meat for thine enemies ; and the sons of 
the stranger shall not drink the (tirosh, oinon, vinum) 
wine for the which thou hast labored." 

Jer., xxxi., 12 : " Therefore they shall come and 
sing in the height of Zion, and shall flow together 
to the goodness of the Lord — for wheat, and fox* 
'tirosh, oinou, vino) wine, and for oil," &c. 

Neh., v., 11 : " Restore, I pray you, to them, even 
this day, their lands, their yineyards, also the hun- 
dredth part of the money, * *•* and of the com, 
the {tirosh, oinon, vini) wine, and the oil, that ye 
exact from them." 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE WINE WHEN ASSOCIATED 
WITH CORN AS FIRST FRUITS. 

Dent., xii., 17 : " Thou mayest not eat within thy 
gates the tithe of thy corn, or of thy (tirosh, oinon, 
vini) wine, or of thy oil," &c. 

Deut., xiv., 23: " And thou shalt eat before the 
Lord thy God in the place which he shall choose to 

NOTT. 



10S SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. 

place his name there, the tithe of thy corn, of thy 
(tirosh, oinou, vini) wine, and of thine oil," &c. 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE WINE WHEN ASSOCIATED 
WITH CORN, ETC., AS OFFERINGS. 

Neh.; x., 39 : " For the children of Israel, and the 
children of Levi shall bring the offering of the corn, 
of the (tirosh, oinou, vini) new wine, and the oil, unto 
the chambers." 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE WINE W T HEN ASSOCIATED WITH 
CORN, ETC., AS INCREASING OR LANGUISHING IN THE 
FIELD. 

Dent., xxxiii., 28 : " The fountain of Jacob shall 
be upon a land of corn and (tirosh, oino, vini), wine, 
also his heavens shall drop down dew." 

2 Chron., xxxi., 5 : "The children of Israel brought 
in abundance the first fruits of corn (tirosh, oinou, 
vini), w T ine, and oil, and honey, and of all the in- 
crease of the field," &c. 

Psalms, iv., 7 : " Thou hast put gladness in my 
heart, more than in the time that their corn and their 
( tirosh, oinou, vim) wine increased." 

Joel., i., 10 : " The field is w r asted, the land mourn- 
eth, for the corn is wasted ; the (tirosh, oinos, vinum) 
new wine is dried up, the oil languisheth." 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE WINE WHEN ASSOCIATED 
WITH CORN IN ITS SEASON. 

Hosea, ii., 9 : " Therefore will I return and take 
away my corn in the time thereof, and my (tirosh 



SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. 109 

oinon, vinum) wine in the season thereof, and will 
recover my wool and my flax," &c, 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE WINE WHEN ASSOCIATED 
WITH CORN AS GATHERED FROM THE FIELD. 

Deut., xi., 14: "That I will give you the rain of 
your land in his due season, the first rain and the 
latter rain, that thou mayest gather in thy corn, and 
thy (tirosh, oinon, vinum) wine and thy oil." 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE WINE WHEN ASSOCIATED 
WITH CORN, ALSO WITH (yayill) WINE. 

Hosea, vii., 14 : "They assemble themselves for 
corn and (tirosh, oino, vinum) wine, and they rebel 
against me." 

Hosea, iv., 11: <: Whoredom and (yayin, oinon, 
vinum), wine, and (tirosh) new wine take away the 
heart." 

THE FRUIT OF THE VINE IN ITS NATURAL STATE IS 
DECLARED TO BE (ausis) NEW WINE. 

Joel, i., 5 : " Awaye, ye drunkards, and weep; 
and howl all ye drinkers of (yayin, oinou, in dulce- 
dine) wine, because of the (ausis) new wine, for it is 
cut off from your mouth." 

Joel, iii., 18 : " And it shall come to pass in that 
day, that the mountains shall drop down (ausis, glu- 
Jcasmo?i, dulcedinum) new wine, and the hills shall 
flow with milk, and all the rivers shall flow w T ith 
waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house 
of the Lord, and shall water the valley of Shittim." 



110 SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. 

Amos, ix., 13 : " Behold the days come, saifch the 
Lord, that the ploughman shall overtake the reaper, 
and the treader of grapes, him that soweth seed ; 
and the mountains shall drop (ausis, gliikasmon, dulce- 
dinum) sweet wine, and all the hills shall melt." 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE (yaijlll) WINE IN THE PRESS. 

Neh., xiii., 15: "In those days saw I in Juclah 
some treading wine presses on the Sabbath, and bring- 
ing in sheaves, * * * as also (ijayin,oino, vinum) 
wine, grapes and figs." 

Isaiah, xvL, 10 : "And gladness is taken away, 
and joy out of the plentiful fields, and in the vine- 
yards there shall be no singing, neither shall there 
be shoutings ; the treaders shall tread out no (yayin, 
oi7io?i, vinum) wine in their presses ; I have made 
their vintage shouting to cease." 

Jer., xlviii., 33 : " And joy and gladness is taken 
from the plentiful field, and from the land of Moab, 
and I have caused (yayin, oinos, vinum) wine to fall 
from the wine presses ; none shall tread with shout- 
ings ; their shoutings shall be no shouting." 

IT IS DECLARED TO BE fyayin) WINE IN THE VINEYARD. 

1 Chron., xxvii., 27 : " And over the vineyards 
was Shimei, the Eamathite, over the increase of the 
vineyards, for the (yayin, oinou, r'nioriis) wine-sellers 
was Zabdi, the Shiphmice." 

Amos, v., 11 : " For as much therefore, as your 
treading is upon the poor, * * * ye have planted 



SCRIPTURE TESTIMONY. Ill 

pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink (yayin, 
oinon, vinum) wine in them." 

Amos, ix., 14 : "And I will bring again the cap- 
tivity of my people Israel, * . * * and they shall 
plant vineyards, and drink the (yayin, oinon, vinum) 
wine thereof; they shall also make gardens and eat 
the fruit of them." 

Zeph., i., 13 : " Therefore their goods shall become 
a booty, and their houses a desolation ; they shall 
also build houses but not inhabit them ; and they 
shall plant vineyards, but not drink the (yayin, oinon, 
vinum) wine thereof." 

Isaiah, xxvii., 2 : "In that day sing ye to her, 
(khemer, vinea meri) a vineyard of red wine." 

Gen., xlix,, 11 : "Binding his foal nnlo the vine, 
and his ass's colt unto the choice vine, he washed 
his garments in (yayin, oino, vino) wine, and his 
clothes in the blood of grapes." 

Deut., xxviii., 39 : " Thou shall plant vineyards 
and dress them, but shall neither drink of the (yayin, 
oinon, vinum) wine, nor gather the grapes, for the 
worms shall eat them." 

2 Kings, xviii., 32 : "Until I come and take you 
aw T ay to a land like your own land, a land of corn 
(tirosh, oinon, vini) wine, a land of bread and vine- 
yards, a land of oil-olive, and of honey, that ye may 
live and not die." 

Isaiah, xxxvi., 17 : " Until I come and take you 
away to a land like your own land, a land of corn 
and (tirosh, oinou, vini) wine, a land of bread and 
vineyards." ' 



112 FRUIT OF THE VINE CALLED WINE. 

Jer., xl., 10: "But ye, gather ye (yayin, oinon, 
vindemiamj wine and summer fruits, and oil, and put 
them in your vessels, and dwell in your cities that 
you have taken." 

Joel, i., 5 : "Awake, ye drunkards, and weep ; and 
howl all ye drinkers of (yayin, oinoiu viniim) wine, 
because of the (amis) new wine, for it is cut off from 
your mouth." 

FINALLY THE FRUIT OF THE VINE, IN ITS NATURAL 
STATE, IS DECLARED TO BE (hhemer) RED WINE IN 
THE VINEYARD. 

Isaiah, xxvii., 2: "In that day sing ye to her 
(hhemer) a vineyard of red wine." 

Thus apparent is it, that in the opinion of the 
translators of our English Bible, the fruit of the 
vine, in its natural and unintoxicating, as well as in 
its artificial and intoxicating state, was called by Moses 
and the Prophets, wine." 

Nor in the opinion of the translators of our Eng- 
lish Bible only, but in the opinion also of the trans- 
lators of the Septuagint, and the Vulgate also. These 
all, as has been shown, render the terms by which the 
fruit of the vine in its natural state is designated, by 
the same terms which designate it in its artificial state. 

Had there been but a single undisputed text in 
which the fruit of the vine in its natural unintoxi- 
cating state was called wine, that single text ought 
to be deemed conclusive. How much more so, when 
there are so many texts in which it is so called by 
different writers, and during so many ages. 



UNFERMENTED WINE OF SUPERIOR QUALITY. 113 

What the terms were which the sacred writers 
actually employed to denote the fruit of the vine in 
the press, the vat, the cluster, and the vineyard, 
admits of no debate. They called the fruit of the 
vine in this state tirosh, ausis, hhcmer, yayin, rendered 
over and over again, oinos in Greek, vinum or merum 
in Latin, and wine in English. 

By the name w T ine, and by no other name, this 
article has always been known to the reader of the 
English Bible. There it is always called wine, as 
every reader of the Bible can assure himself. And 
whether it is rightly called wine there ; and rightly 
called oinos in the Sept., and vinum in the Vulgate, 
has never (it is believed) till of late been called in 
question. 

Be this, however, as it may, that the unfermented 
fruit of the vine in the form of grape juice was called 
wine, is as apparent as it is that it w T as used as a 
beverage. More than this, it w^as not only called 
wine, but it was also accounted to be good wine. 

Wine of superior quality, for it was employed by 
way of distinction as a symbol of mercy, enumerated 
among other blessings, and declared to be itself a 
blessing. 

Tirosh, always used by the sacred writers to denote 
the fruit of the vine in its natural, and not in its 
artificial state, occurs but thirty-eight times in the 
Hebrew Bible ; in thirty- six of which it is clearly' 
used in a good sense and with approbation. It is 
used once (Hosea, vii., 14) in a doubtful sense ; and 
once and only once (Hosea, iv., 11) in a bad sense or 



1 14 TIROSH — YAYIN. 

with disapprobation, and then in connection with 
yayin; but not on account of any imputed inebriat- 
ing qualities, but as contributing to take away the 
heart.* 

Yatin is a generic term, and when not restricted 
in its meaning by some word or circumstance, compre- 
hends vinous beverage of every sort, however pro- 
duced, and whether the fruit of the vine or not. It 
is, however, as we have seen, often restricted to the 
fruit of the vine in its natural and unintoxicating 
state. But when so restricted, we have in no instance 
found it used in a bad sense, or with disapprobation. 
Yayin is also frequently restricted to the fruit of the 
vine in its artificial or intoxicating state, in which 
state it is usually, if not uniformly, used in a bad 
sense or with disapprobation. 

In most, if not all the following passages, yayin is 
clearly used for the fruit of the vine in an artificial 
and intoxicating state, and with disapprobation, ex- 
pressed or implied. 

Yayin, used as causing, or in connection with 
drunkenness, or drinking, to wit : 

With the drunkenness of Noah, Gen., ix.,21, 24. 

" " of Lot, _ Gen., xix., 32, 33, 34, 35. 

" " of Kabal (supposed), 1 Sam., xxv., 37. 

" " of Amnion, 2 Sam., xiii., 28. 

" " of priests and prophets, Isaiah, xxviii., 1. 

*' " of Kings and people, Jer., xiii., 13, 14. 

As causing drunkenness to prophets, Jer., xxiii., 9. 

" " to priests and prophets, Isaiah, xxviii., 7. 

"With woe to those inflamed by it, Isaiah, v., 11, 12, 22. 



• See Appendix. 



YAYIN, IN CONNECTION WITH DRUNKENNESS. 115 

With woe to the drunkards of Ephraim, Isaiah, xxviii., 1. 

As an illustration of drunkenness, Isaiah, xxix., 9. 

As a symbol of drunkenness, -- Isaiah, li., 22. 

With weeping of drunkards, Joel, i., 5. 

With dissoluteness, Joel, iii., 3. 

also Hosea, iv., 11. 

With treachery, ^ _. Gen., xxvii., 25. 

With tho poison of dragons, Deut., xxxii., 33. 

With idolatry, Dent., xxxii., 38. 

With fury, _„ Jer., xxv., 15. 

With astonishment, Psalms, lx., 3. - 

With drugs, _ , Psalms, lxxv., 8. 

With violence,. _„ Prov., iv., 17. 

With falsehood, _ , Micah, ii., 11. 

With the mocker, „ Prov., xx., 1. 

With woe and sorrow, Prov.: xxiii., 29,31,32,33. 

With profaneness,, , „_ Amos, ii., 8. 

With voluptuousness,. _., r , Eccles., ii.; 3. 

With festivity and merriment, Eccles., x., 19. 

also Amos, vi., 2. 

( Isaiah, v., 11., 12, 22. 

With sensuality, ) Isaiah, xxii., 13, 

( Isaiah, lvi., 12. 

With transgression, „».-.. , _. Hab., ii., 5. 

With woe, „., Isaiah, xxviii., 1, also 7. 

With prohibition to Nazarites, Num., vi., 3. 

" " to the mother of Sampson, Jud., xiii., 4, 7, 14. *" 

» ■ to the mother of Samuel, 1 Sam., i., 14, 15. 

s< " to the Rechabites, Jer., xxxv., 6, 7, 8, 

" " to the priests, , Lev., x. } 9. 

also Ezekiel, xliv., 21. 

With reproof to kings, ,_, Prov., xxxi,, 4. 

With temptations to Nazarites _ _.._, Amos, ii., 12. 

With temptation to Rechabites, Jer., xxxv., 2, 5. 

With refusal by Rechabites, Jer., xxxv., 6, 8, 16. 

With refusal by Daniel, Dan., i., 5,8, 16. 

also Dan., x., 3. 

With punishment, _. Psalms, lxxv., 8. 

With madness, „ Jer., xli., 7. 

In most if not all the following passages, yayin is 
used to denote the fruit of the vine in its natural and 
unintoxicating state, and in none of them is it used 
with disapprobation, either expressed or implied ; 
nor is it elsewhere ever so used when employed to 

NOTT. 



116 USED TO DENOTE UNFERMENTED WINE* 

denote the fruit of the vine in its natural and unin- 
toxicating state : 

Gen., xliv., 11 : Used for new wine or the blood 
of the grape. 

Deut., xxviii., 30 : For the same in connection 
with grapes. 

2 Kings, xviii., 32 : For the same in connection 
with corn and vineyards. 

Psalms, civ., 15 : In connection with oil and bread. 

Isaiah, xvi., 10 : In connection with wine presses 
and the treading of grapes. 

Isaiah, xxxvi., 15 : With corn and vineyards. 

Isaiah, lv., 1 : With milk. 

Jer. xl., 10 : As a blessing in connection with 
summer fruits. 

Jer., xl., 12 : Same. 

Jer., xlviii., 33 : With wine presses and the tread- 
ing of grapes. 

Lam., ii., 12 : With corn. 

Amos, v., 11 : With vineyards. 

Amos, ix., 14 : With vineyards. 

Neh., xiii., 15 : With wine presses. 

Zeph., i., 13 : With vineyards. 

Cant., vii., 9 : With sweetness. 

Cant., v., 1 : With milk. 

Besides the foregoing, there are passages in which 
yayin is used, where there is nothing in the imme- 
diate connection to indicate whether it be used for 
the fruit of the vine in its natural or artificial state ; 
that is, whether it is in the state in which it exists 
in the vineyard and the vat, or in the state in which 



SHECHAR. 117 

it exists after being removed therefrom and subjected 
to further fermentation. 

Shechar, sweet or saccharine beverage, from the 
sap of the palm, or the sap or fruit of other trees, 
except the vine, is rendered dxtpa in the Sept. (from 
the Hebrew verb shachar ) ; and with a single excep- 
tion, strong drink in the English Bible, that exception 
is Exod., xxix., 40, where it is rendered strong wine ; 
by Theoderet and Chrysostom, both natives of Syria, 
it is called palm wine. That it is rightly so called, 
is confirmed by the testimony of Doctor Shaw, as 
w r ell as of the modern Arabs. 

It occurs but twenty-three times. It is usually 
associated with yayin. One or the other, or both 
of these terms, are used in connection with drunken- 
ness or drunken feasts, or are spoken of with disap- 
probation, upwards of seventy times, and in twenty- 
one instances are employed to express temporal or 
eternal judgment. Whereas tirosh, expressive of 
the fruit of the vine in its natural state, is never 
once used in such connection, nor employed for such 
a purpose ; nor, with the single exception before- 
alluded to, is it ever spoken of with disapprobation 
of any sort. And here it may not be impertinent to 
remark, that whenever wine is denounced in the 
Bible, the denunciation is never against tirosh, ausis, 
hhemer or sobe, but always against yayin. And 
that whenever any other word expressive of vinous 
beverage is associated with shechar in speaking of 
drunkenness and drunken feasts, that other word 



118 DISTINCTION IN USE OF TERMS. 

is never tirosh, or ausis, or sobe, or hhemer, but 
always yayin. 

So manyUnd such repeated commendations of the 
fruit of the vine in its natural and unfermented state, 
and so many and such repeated condemnations of it 
in its artificial and fermented state, cannot have been 
left upon record without design ; and if that design, 
to say the least, be not to encourage the use of the 
fruit of the vine in the former state, and to dis- 
courage the use of it in the latter, it would be diffi- 
cult to divine what it was. 

The difference existing in the kinds of vinous 
beverages formerly in use, and which is so distinctly 
marked in the Hebrew text, is for the most part 
concealed from the reader of the English Bible by 
the uniform manner in which the several terms 
expressive of that difference are translated wine. 
But for which uniformity, the fact of the existence 
of such difference, it is believed, would not now be 
made a question ; and notwithstanding that uni- 
formity, it is reasonable to suppose (especially con- 
sidering the poverty of the Hebrew language ) that 
seven different words have been employed by patri- 
archs and prophets to express the same identical 
beverage in the same state. 

In the preceding analysis we have found, as it might 
have been expected we should, one generic term 
(yayin) expressive of vinous beverage of every sort. 
We have also found a term (tirosh) expressive of 
the fruit of the vine as it exists in the cluster in the 
vineyard, or press, or vat ; a term ( ausis ) expressive 



RESULT OF ANALYSIS — TERMS. 119 

of it as it exists dropping or expressed fresh from 
the cluster ; a term (sobiie) expressive of it as in- 
spissated or boiled ; a term (hhemer) expressive of it 
when unmingled with other ingredients, and a term 
(mesch) expressive of it when mingled; whether 
with water or with drugs.* 

That the fruit of the vine in all these states is 
called wine, there can be no doubt. The proof of 
this is palpable and abundant, and if rightly so called, 
then different kinds of wine formerly existed, and 
unfermented as well as fermented grape juice is truly 
wine. 

But it may be said, though the fruit of the vine 
in its natural and unfermented state is called wine, 
it is not really so, and is only so called by a well 
known figure of speech, the applying of the name 
of the product to the material from which it is pro- 
duced. 

It is readily admitted that in poetry and in other 
imaginative writings this often occurs, and some- 
times, even though rarely, in mere prose. But were 
this admitted in many, nay in most, nay in all the 
passages quoted (which it is believed no scholar will 
claim to be the case); but were this admitted, it is 
not perceived that the admission would change the 
issue made, or in the least weaken the arguments 
adduced. 

The fruit of the vine in its natural state is either 
wine before fermentation or it is not. Be it then thai 

* See Appendix. 



120 COMMENDATIONS DIRECTED TO UNFERMENTED. 

before fermentation, though often called wine, it is 
not so ; but merely something else out of which wine 
is made. This admitted, then all the commendations 
of the fruit of the vine, previous to fermentation, with 
which the Bible abounds, are not commendations of 
wine at all, but merely commendations of that out 
of which wine is made ; and all the condemnations 
of wine with which the Bible also abounds are con- 
demnations of the fruit of the vine, not before but 
after fermentation, and are therefore condemnations, 
not of that out of which wine is made, but condem- 
nations of the veritable article made, wine itself. 

And if the numerous commendations of the fruit 
of the vine, before fermentation, with which the Bi- 
ble abounds, be laid out of the account, it will be 
very difficult to find any clear and unequivocal com- 
mendations of wine in the Bible at all. For it is 
before and not after fermentation that the possession 
of the fruit of the vine is spoken of as a national 
blessing, its loss as a national curse. And it is after 
and not before fermentation that the fruit is styled a 
mocker, associated with crime, and employed itself 
as a symbol of wrath. 

To test the truth of this, let any reader of the 
Bible collect and arrange in one column all the 
passages in which wine is spoken of with approba- 
tion, either expressly or by implication; and let him 
also collect and arrange in another column all the 
passages in which wine is spoken of with disappro- 
bation, either expressly or by implication, and if he 
does not discover in the sequel that the approbation 



FERMENTED WINE NOT COMMENDED. 121 

expressed in the passages selected is usually, if not 
always, approbation of the fruit of the vine before 
fermentation, and that the disapprobation expressed 
is disapprobation of the fruit of the vine after fer- 
mentation, he will have succeeded in collecting (and 
arranging in separate columns) a series of texts which 
have been overlooked in this inquiry. 

If wine be commnecled at all in the Bible, and 
there is no doubt it is, its commendation will be 
found, it is believed, chiefly if not wholly in the 
commendation of the so-called wine of the vineyard, 
the cluster, the press and the vat. Grapes and grape 
juice, then, before fermentation (whether wine or 
not), are articles which God approves and commands 
— whereas grape juice after fermentation, though truly 
wine, and the only article by supposition rightly so 
called, is an article often repudiated and abundantly 
spoken against — and, if its nature has not changed, 
not without reason was it spoken against. For it is 
now what it was said to be then, " a mocker:" and 
now as then it causes woe and sorrow and redness of 
eyes and wounds without cause ; and now as then it 
is armed with the serpent's bite and the adder's sting. 

To conclude : That the fruit of the vine, in its 
natural state, was not only called wine, but was 
accounted by the sacred writers a better article, 
being more frequently commended and less frequently 
spoken against than the fruit of the vine in its artifi- 
cial state, would seem sufficiently apparent from the 
authorities already quoted. 



122 UNFERMENTED WINE DEFINED, 

Whether the fruit of the vine in the former state 
might not possibly be procured and preserved at so 
low a temperature as wholly to prevent the forma- 
tion of alcohol, by preventing fermentation, it is not 7 
in so far as this discussion is concerned, needful to 
inquire ; since it is readily admitted that in the 
climate of Judea this could not ordinarily if ever be 
the case. 

By unfermented wine, therefore, as used in this 
discussion, is meant wine that has undergone no arti- 
ficial or other or further fermentation than what 
ordinarily takes place in the vat and the press, and 
sometimes perhaps even in the cluster. Such wine, 
though not entirely free from alcohol, contains but 
little of that element, and that little so modified by 
the remaining saccharine matter, with which it exists 
in admixture, as to prevent its producing intoxica- 
tion, even though used freely and to the extent 
required for common beverage. Nor would it, even 
if used to excess (though it might produce sickness), 
produce intoxication ; and it may, therefore, in dis- 
tinction from the more fully fermented fruit of the 
vine, be fitly called, as we have called it. unintoxi- 
CATING wine. Whether profane writers have made 
the same distinction as the sacred writers have made, 
in the states in which the fruit of the vine exists, and 
whether, when in its natural state, they call it wine, 
and in what estimation it was formerly and is still 
held by them in this state, will be made the subject 
of inquiry in our next lecture. 






LECTURE No. IV. 



INQUIRY EXTENDED TO PROFANE WRITERS. 

The wine question continued — Grape juice spoken of as a beverage 
by profane writers — Called wine — Pronounced good wine — Bet- 
ter before than after fermentation — The formation of alcohol in- 
tentionally prevented by arresting fermentation — Dissipated when 
formed by the filter, or counteracted by dilution — The question at 
issue a question of degree, not of totality — The question of sin 
per se considered — Perfect purity not attainable — Wine placed 
on the same footing as other articles of food, 

We have attempted, in the preceding lecture, to 
show that sacred writers make a distinction between 
the fruit of the vine in its natural (that is, its unfer- 
mented and unintoxicating) state, and its artificial 
(that is, its fermented and intoxicating) state; that 
in both these states it is called in the Hebrew text 
yayin, in the Greek version oinos, in the Latin vinum, 
and in the English wine ; that the fruit of the vine, 
in its natural state, was not only called wine, but 
was accounted better wine, being more highly com- 
mended, and less frequently and severely spoken 
against, than the fruit of the vine in its artificial and 

intoxicating state. 
123 



124 CATO. 

Now, though this were peculiar to the sacred wri- 
ters, it would be decisive of the question at issue. It 
is what Moses and Samuel and David and Isaiah and 
Jeremiah and other sacred writers, and not what 
Aristotle and Plato and Columella and other profane 
writers say, that we are chiefly concerned to know. 
But whether this be peculiar to the sacred writers, 
or common to them and to profane writers, we are 
now prepared to inquire. 

That the profane writers made the same distinction 
between the fruit of the vine in its natural and arti- 
ficial state, as. the sacred writers made ; that the fruit 
of the vine in its natural state was used as a beve- 
rage, and that in both states it was called wine, 
would seem apparent from the following testimony : 

Cato the elder, in his work on " Rural Affairs," 
has a chapter concerning pendant wine. "Lex vini 
pendentis" is the heading of this chapter. It is the 
cxlvii. 

The regulation concerning the hanging or ungath- 
ered wine is as follows: " Hac lege vinum pendens 
v enire oportet. Vinaccos illotos et fences relinqu ito. Locus 
vinis ad halendas Octobris primas dabitur; si non ante ea 
exportaveris) dominus vino quod volet faciei ." "Accord- 
ing to this regulation, the hanging wine ought to be 
sold. You are to leave the husks unwatered, and 
the dregs. A place shall be set apart for the wine, 
down to the first kalends of October ; if you have 
not carried them clear off before, the proprietor shall 
do whatever he pleases with the wine." That Cato 
used the term vinum, for wine in the cluster, is appa- 



LIVY OVID PLUTARCH PLAUTUS. 1 25 

rent from the next chapter, in which he treats of 
vinum in doliis — the wine in the casks. 

Livy, who flourished in the golden age of Eoman 
literature, when accounting for the settlement in the 
plains of Italy of the Clusii (one of the barbarous 
tribes of ancient Gaul), says (lib. v., chap. 33): "Earn 
gentem (sell. Clusinum) traditur fama dtdcedine frugum, 
maximeque vi?ii, nova turn voluptate, captam, Alpes tran- 
sisse, agrosque ah Etruscis ante cidtos possedisse : et invex- 
isse in Galliam vinum inliciendce gentis causa Aruntem 
Clusinum" &fc* " There is a traditionary report that 
that nation (the Clusii), captivated by the luscious- 
ness of the fruits, and especially of the (vinum) wine, 
crossed over the Alps, and took possession of the 
inclosed lands, hitherto cultivated by the Etrurians; 
and that Aruns, the Clusian, for the purpose of allur- 
ing his people, imported (vinum) wine into Gaul." 

Ovid applies the Latin merum, wine, in the same 
manner: " Vixque merum capiunt grana quod intus 
habent" " and scarce the grapes contain the wine 
within." 

Calmet says : " The ancients had the secret of pre- 
serving wine sweet throughout the year;" and Plu- 
tarch affirms, that " before the time of Psammeticus, 
the Egyptians neither drank fermented wine, nor 
offered it in sacrifice." 

According to Plautus, who lived about two hun- 
dred years before Christ, the Latin mustum signified 
"both wine and sweet juice." * 

* Leigh's Oritica Sacra, p. 68. 



126 TIBULLUS AND OTHERS. 

Says Nicander : " Olvevg &ev KoiXoidiv ano^Xt^ac, 
denaeccriv oivov efcXrjoe." " And (Enus having squeez- 
ed the juice of the grape into hollow cups, called H 
wine {olvov)." Thus the Greeks, as well at the He- 
brews, called fresh grape juice wine. 

Says Tibullus, in his fifth Elegy: "Ilia dco sciet 
agricolce pro vitibus uvam, pro segete spicas grege ferre 
dapem." 

■* With pious care, will load each rural shrine, 
For ripened crops a golden sheaf assigns, 
Gates for my fold, rich clusters/or my wine." * 

" A white sweet liquor distils from the Palm," 
which, Prof. Kid says, " is used extensively in India, 
under the name of Palm wine." f 

( Yayin, ) " Wine which is made by squeezing the 
grapes — the expressed juice of grapes." J 

" Pressed wine is that which is squeezed with a 
press from the grapes ; sweet wine is that which has 
not yet fermented." § 

" Must, the wine or liquor in the vat." || 

" The modern Turks carry the unfermented wine 
along with them in their journeys." ^f 

That profane writers, both Greek and Latin, have 
not only made the distinction between the fruit of 
the vine in its natural and its artificial state, and 
spoke of the former as beverage, and called it wine 
— but that they have also spoken of it as good 



* Grainger. § Bees' Encyclopedia. 

f Bridgewater's Treatise, p. 214. J Dr. Sanders. 

% Parkhurst. TT Sir Edward Barry. 



HORACE. 127 

wine, and spoken of other wine as good, which, on 
account of its unintoxicating nature, resembled the 
fruit of the vine in its natural state, will be apparent 
from the following authorities. 

Whatever may be the decision of those whose taste 
has been depraved by the fabricated wines of com- 
merce and the drinking usages of the moderns,. there 
cannot be a doubt that the wise and good men among 
the ancients, as well uninspired as inspired, appre- 
ciated wines of every kind the higher, the less alco- 
hol and the more saccharine matter they severally 
contained ; and the contained alcohol, other things 
being equal, depended on the extent to which fer- 
mentation was carried. 

Even Horace was evidently aware of the distinc- 
tion between intoxicating and unintoxicating wine : 

44 Aufidius forti miscebat mella Falerno 
Mendose ; quoniam vacuis committere veni3 
Nil nisi lene decet, leni prsecordia mulso 
Prolueris melius." * 

44 Aufidius first most injudicious, quaffed 

Stong wine and honey for his morning draught ; 
With lenient beverage fill your empty veins. 
For lenient must will better cleanse the reins." 

Elsewhere the same poet says : 

44 Hie innocentis pocula Lesbii, 
Duces sub umbra ; nee Semelius 
Cum Marte confundet Thyoneus 
Prselia." 



NOTT. 



* Horace, Sat. 4, 24. 



128 COLUMELLA. 

He tells his friend Meeamas, that he might drink 
a " hundred glasses of this innocent Lesbian," with- 
out any danger to his head or senses. In the Del- 
phian edition of Horace, we are told that " Lesbian 
wine could injure no one ; that, as it would neither 
affect the head or influence the passions, there w^as 
no fear that those who drank it would become quar- 
relsome." It is added, that " there is no wine sweeter 
to drink than Lesbian ; that it was like nectar, and 
more resembled ambrosia than wine ; that it w^as 
perfectly harmless, and would not produce intoxica- 
tion." 

Athenseus (as translated by Baccius) says, that 
" Surrentinum pingue et valde debile" " Surrentine wine 
w T as fat and very weak ; " which is in keeping with 
the words of Pliny : "Surrentina vina caput non tenent" 
" Surrentine wine does not affect the head." As are 
also the words of Persius, iii., 93 : 

"Lenia loturo sibi Surrentina rogavit." 
" He has asked for himself, about to bathe, mild Surrentine." 

Columella (book iii., cap. 2), alluding to the weak 
wines of Greece, says : " Those small Greek wines, 
as the Mareotic, Thasian, Psythian, Sophortian, 
though they have a tolerable good taste, yet, in our 
climate, they yield but little wine, from the thinness 
of their clusters, and the smallness of their berries. 
Nevertheless, the black Inerticula (the sluggish vine), 
which some Greeks call Amcthyston, may be placed, 
as it were, in the second tribe, because it both yields 
a good wine, and is harmless — from which, also, it 
took its name — because it is reckoned dull, and not 



ARISTOTLE PLINY. 129 

to have spirit enough to affect the nerves, though it 
is not dull and flat to the taste." 

Speaking of sweet wine, Aristotle says (Meteor., 
lib. iv., cap. 9): u olvog #', b fiev y/awrc 6lo kcil ov [is- 
&vcrKet? 9 "that sweet wine would not intoxicate." 

There was a Spanish wine says Pliny (lib, xiv. ? 
cap. 2), called " merticulam jusiius sobriam, viribus 
iwnoziam, si qu idem tentulentiam sola nonfacitf* " a wine 
which would not intoxicate," 

Pliny and Yarro speak of a wine called murrina, 
" a wine not mixed with myrrh, but a very sweet 
aromatic drink, much approved of by Roman ladies, 
and conceded to them because it would not inebriate." 
"Dulcis nee inebriens" are the words of Yarro. Of 
this wine Pliny also says (lib, xiv., cap. 3), that it 
would not intoxicate. 

Athenasus speaks of the i; innocent Chian," and the 
" unintoxicating Biblinum," and Plautus of the 
" toothless Thanium and Coan ;" all of which vinous 
beverages are comprehended under the term oinos, 
each of which is designated by that term ; and even 
when different kinds of wine are indicated, the same 
name is applied to more than one kind. It is not 
sufficient, therefore, to say, "He drank Crete wine," 
for as Baccius affirms, "Duplex martinet vinosum et 
dulce quod possum elicit." It is needful, in judging 
ancient wines, to attend to the quality as well as the 
name: "quia VENTCJM non temetum, sed PA&StTM DULCE, 
pcrmittitur mulieribus : dulce vera non inebriens" Thus 
the vinosum temetum, or strong intoxicating wine, is 
exhibited in contrast with the weak unintoxicating 
6* 



130 ANDREAS BACCIUS— DR. E. CLARK. 



i? 



wine. The one class is spoken of as u pote?is vinum 
powerful wine ; the other, as having " nihil vinosum" 
nothing vinous. 

"All Italy," says Andreas Baccius, "naturally, at 
this time, abounds in wines and delights throughout 
in sweet wines, and not less in black wines ; but 
these are altogether different from the ancient wines, 
both in their preparation and in their treatment, as 
well as their quality, for our sweet, as well as the 
white and black, intoxicate." 

There were wines which, without being subjected 
to any special treatment, would, on account of their 
excess of saccharine matter, remain without ferment- 
ing, in their natural and unintoxicating state, for a 
great length of time ; such, especially, were the wines 
of Tenedos. 

Says Dr. E. Clark, in his travels : " Perhaps there 
is no part of the world where the vine yields such 
redundant and luscious fruit ; the juice of the Cyprian 
grape resembles a concentrated essence. The wine 
of this island is so famous all over the Levant, that, 
in the hyperbolical language of the Greeks, it is said 
to have the power of restoring youth to age, and 
animation to those who are at the point of death. 
Englishmen, however, do not consider it as a favorite 
beverage ; it requires near a century of age to deprive 
it of that sickly sweetness which renders it repug- 
nant to their palates." 

" When it has remained in bottles for ten or twelve 
years, it acquires a slight degree of fermentation 
upon exposure to the air ; and this, added to its 



. 



DR. E. CLARK — CALMET. 131 

sweetness and high color causes it to resemble 
Tokay more than any other wine ; but the Cypriots 
do not drink it in this state ; it is preserved by them 
in casks to w T hich the air has constantly access, and 
will keep in this manner for any number of years. 
After it has withstood the vicissitudes of the seasons 
for a single year, it is supposed to have passed the 
requisite proof, and then it sells for three Turkish 
piastres a goose (about twenty-one pints). After- 
wards the price augments in proportion to its age. 
We tasted some of the Commanderia, which they 
said was forty years old, although still in the cask. 
After this period it is considered as a balm, and re- 
served on the account of its supposed restorative 
andjhealing quality for the sick and dying. A greater 
proof of its strength cannot be given, than by relating 
the manner in w T hich it is kept — in casks neither 
filled nor closed. A piece of sheet lead is merely 
laid over the bung hole, and this is removed every 
day when customers visit their cellars to taste the 
different sorts of wine proposed for sale." 

Even in wines expressed from less luscious grapes, 
wine could be, and often w T as produced, that would 
remain permanently sweet and unintoxicating. 

Calmet informs us, that " the ancients had the 
secret of preserving w T ine sweet throughout the 
year;" and Plutarch records, that " before the time 
of Psammetticus, the Egyptians nether drank fer- 
mented wine, nor "used it in their offerings." And 
there are waiters who inform us how the preservation 
of wine sweet throughout the year might be effected. 

aSOTT. 



132 COLUMELLA— DIDYMUS— SUfDAS. 

Says Columella (lib., xii., chap. 27): "Devino dulcl 
faciendo:" " Gather the grapes, and expose them for 
three days to the sun ; on the fourth, at midday, tread 
them ; take the mustum lixivium, that is, the juice 
which flows into the lake before you use the press, 
and when it has cooled, add one ounce of pounded 
iris, strain the wine from its fasces, and pour it into 
a vessel. This wine will be sweet, firm or durable, 
and healthful to the body." 

Says Didymus, (lib. vii., chap. IS): " In Bythinia, 
some persons thus make sw r eet wine : " Thirty days 
before the vintage, they twist the twigs w r hich bear 
the clusters, and strip off the foliage, so that (the 
rays of) the sun striking down, may dry up the 
moisture (sap), and make the wine sweet, just as we 
do b3 T boiling. They twist the twigs for this reason, 
(viz.): that they may withdraw the clusters from the 
sap and nourishment of the vine, so that they may 
no longer receive any moisture (sap) from it. Some 
persons, after they have bared the bunches from the 
leaves, and the grapes begin to wrinkle, gather them 
together in the clusters, and expose them to the sun, 
until they have become tivce passes (raisins). Lastly, 
they take them up when the sun is at the hottest 
point, carry them to the upper press, and leave them 
there the rest of the day, and the whole of the fol- 
lowing night, and about daylight they tread them." 

Suidas calls "yXevicog" which is said to be mvstum, 
vinam, et succus dulcis, must, wine and a sw T eet juice, 
" to dirooTayfia rrj£ ara<pv?Sjg irplv 7raT?j3?i" the wine 
" that dropped from the grape before it was trodden." 



EXPEDIENTS TO PREVENT FERMENTATION. 1 33 

Mr. Buckingham says that wine in Smyrna is 
called " the droppings of the wine press," and " vir- 
gin wine." 

According to Pliny, Protropum was "mustum quod 
sponte projluit antequam uvcb calcentur" the " must 
which flows spontaneously from the grapes before 
they have been trodden." 

These rich, slightly fermented, unintoxicating 
wanes were not only held in peculiar estimation 
among the ancients, but by them various expedients 
were adopted, not to increase, but to diminish the 
production of alcohol, by arresting the process of 
fermentation in their other and less luscious wines, 
among which expedients were the exclusion of air, 
and the reduction of temperature, the evaporation 
of contained water, and the absorption of the con- 
tained oxygen. 

1st. THE EXCLUSION OF AIR, AND THE REDUCTION OP 
TEMPERATURE, FOR THE PURPOSE OF PREVENTING 
THE PRODUCTION OF ALCOHOL, BY ARRESTING THE 
PROCESS OF FERMENTATION. 

It was a well known fact that air and a certain 
degree of heat were requisite to fermentation, and it 
was also a well known fact that wines were less liable 
to run into the vinous fermentation, after they had 
been kept a considerable length of time in an unfer- 
mented state. 

Hence the Komans were accustomed to put the 
new wine into jars, which, being well stopped, new 
ones being preferred, were then immersed for several 



134 FERMENTATION PREVENTED BY EVAPORATION. 

weeks in a cistern or pond ; in fact, as the wine was 
made about September and October, they were some- 
times allowed to remain immersed during the whole 
of the winter, until, as Pliny naively observes, " the 
wine had acquired the habit of being cold." Some- 
times the same object was effected by the cask being 
buried deep under ground.* 

Says Columella (lib. xii., cap. 29) "quemadmodtim 
mustum semper dulce tanquam recens permaneat : " " that 
your must may be always as sweet as it is new, thus 
proceed : before you apply the press to the fruit, 
take the newest must from the lake, put it into anew 
amphora, bung it up, and cover it very carefully with 
pitch; lest any water should enter ; then immerse it 
in a cistern or pond of pure cold water, and allow no 
part of the amphora to remain above the surface. 
After forty days, take it out, and it will remain sweet 
for a year." 

2d. THE EVAPORATION OF THE CONTAINED WATER FOR 
THE PURPOSE OF PREVENTING THE PRODUCTION OF 
ALCOHOL, BY ARRESTING THE PROCESS OF FERMEN- 
TATION. 

It is conceded by modern chemists generally, it 
is believed, that the ancients were correct in the 
opinion, that a certain degree of fluidity is essential 
to fermentation. 

When grape juice is very weak and watery, boil- 
ing may indeed, by increasing the relative proportion 

* Pliny's Natural History, lib. xiv., chap. 9. 



BOERHAAVE ARISTOTLE DEMOCRITUS. lo5 

of the saccharine matter, facilitate the process of 
fermentation. But where the requisite fluidity, and 
the requisite proportions between the barm or yeast 
and the saccharine matter already exist, boiling will 
obstruct or prevent fermentation. 

Says Boerhaave : " By boiling, the juice of the 
richest grapes loses all its aptitude for fermentation, 
and may afterwards be preserved for years without 
undergoing any further changes." 

Says Newman : " It is observable, that when thick 
juices are boiled down to a thick consistence, they 
not only do not ferment in that state, but are not 
easily brought into fermentation when diluted with 
as much water as they had lost in the evaporation, 
or even with the very individual waiter that had 
exhaled from them. Thus sundry sweet liquors are 
preserved for a length of time by boiling. From 
these considerations, it is probable that the qualites 
for which the Eomans and Greeks valued their wines 
were very different from those sought after in the 
present day ; and that they contained much saccha- 
rine matter and but little alcohol." 

Says Aristotle : " The wine of Arcadia w r as so thick 
that it was necessary to scrape it from the skin bot- 
tles in which it was contained, and to dissolve the 
scrapings in w r ater." 

Says Democritus : " The Lacedaemonians, elg to rrvp 

£(x)Ol TOV olvOV, EG)g CLV TO TTEfATTTOV fiepog dCpS 1prj$7] ftdl \LETCb 

Tcaaapa hi] np&vTai, w r ere accustomed to boil their wine 
upon the fire until the fifth part had been consumed. 
It was drunk after a period of four vears had elapsed." 



136 PREPARATIONS INCLUDED UNDER TERM WINE. 

Says Pliny : " musto usque ad tertiam partem mensura 
decocto ; quod ubi factum ad dimidiam cst,defrutumvoca,~ 
miis" * 

The practice of boiling wine was and still is pre- 
valent among the Asiatics. To the existence and 
prevalence of this practice, Dr. Bowering bears tes- 
timony. Among the boiled wines spoken of by the 
ancient writers, are Sapa, Defrutum, Sirantm, and 
Hepsima. 

These wines are very similar, and the chief dif- 
ference between them appears to consist in the degree 
to which they were severally reduced. The derivation 
of sapa may have been, perhaps, from the Hebrew 
sobhe, as siraswn may have been from the Hebrew syr, 
caldron, in which the process of boiling was per- 
formed. 

Fabbroni, an Italian writer, treating of Jewish hus- 
bandry, says : " The palm trees, also, which especi- 
ally abounded in the neighborhood of Jericho and En- 
gaddi, served to make a very sweet wine, which is 
made all over the East, being called 'palm wine ' by 
the Latins, and 'syra' in India, from the Persian shir, 
which means ' luscious liquor or drink.' " 

These preparations are all distinctly included under 
the class olvog, wines. In deciding, therefore, concern- 
ing ancient wines, it is necessary to consider the 
quality, as well as the name, because, as Baccius 
informs us, "duplex meminit ct didce quod passum dicit;" 
and hence as another ancient writer says : " Quia 

* Pliny's Natural History, cap. ix. 



FERMENTATION PREVENTED BY OXYGEN. 137 

vinum non TEMETOM sed possum dulce permittitur mulieri- 

bllS DULCE VERO NON INEBRIANS." 

3d. ABSORPTION OF THE CONTAINED OXYGEN, FOR 

THE PURPOSE OF PREVENTING THE FORMATION OF 

ALCOHOL, BY ARRESTING THE PROCESS OF FER- 
MENTATION. 

Says C. Beading in his history and description of 
modern wines, p. 41 ; " Its object (sulphurization) is 
to impart to wine clearness and the principle of pre- 
servation, and to prevent fermentation." 

Says Dr. Ure: "Fermentation maybe tempered 
or stopped by those means which render the yeast 
inoperative, particularly by the oils that contain 
sulphur, as oil of mustard; as also by the sulphurous 
and sulphuric acids. The operation of sulphurous 
acid, in obstructing the fermentation of must, con- 
sists partly, no doubt, in its absorbing oxygen, 
w 7 hereby the elimination of the yeasty particles is 
prevented. The sulphurous acid, moreover, acts 
more powerfully upon fermenting liquors that contain 
tartar, as grape juice, than sulphuric acid. This 
acid decomposes the tartaric salts; combining with 
their bases, sets the vegetable acids free, which does 
not interfere with the fermentation, but the sulphu- 
rous acid operates directly upon the yeast." 

In the London Encyclopedia, "stum" is termed 
an unfermented wine ; to prevent it from fermenting, 
the casks are matched, or have brimstone burnt in 
them. Sulphur is placed among the antiferments 
mentioned by Donovan, 



138 SULPHURIZATION. 

Says Count Dandolo, on the art of making and 
preserving of the wines of Italy, first published at 
Milan, 1812: "The last process in wine making is 
sulphurization ; its object is to secure the most long 
continued preservation of all wines, even of the very 
commonest sort. The classifications (spoken of in a 
former section) tend to assist this keeping of wines ; 
but sulphurization, or the application of sulphur 
(sulphurous acid) to the wine, is that process which 
more directly attacks that prenicious fermenting 
principle, in the very bowels of the wine itself (if 
such an expression may be allowed), and destroys its 
power of mischief. The action of this vapor of sul- 
phur not only neutralizes, changes and destroys the 
fermenting principle existing as yet undeveloped in 
the must fresh pressed from the grape, leaving un- 
touched the saccharine part, but it operates equally 
upon the quantity of ferment remaining in the wine 
which has already undergone fermentation." " This 
process shows the effect of sulphurization to annihi- 
late entirely the power of the fermenting principle 
in the wine, and even in the must, without ever 
changing the sugary substance in the must, or the 
alcohol in the wine." By this means, a sound, wine 
though on the very point of changing, and a wine 
which could not be carried twenty miles without 
becoming muddy, or being spoiled, after clarification 
or sulphurization, is in a state for keeping a hundred 
years, and will bear the motion of a long journey. 

And not only is it the rich and generous wines, 
such as the well known ones of Bordeaux, which by 



i 



ALCOHOL DISSIPATED BY ANCIENTS. 139 

Bulphurization can be rendered capable of long keep- 
ing and bearing a journey, but even the wry light- 
est wines, like those of Burgundy, are equally influ- 
enced by it, and become fit for exportation or removal 
to distant places. 

Sulphurization, then, not only leaves untouched 
the alcohol which may be already existing, and the 
aromatic principles of the wine, but when a wine 
that has been sulphurized contains any sugary matter 
not decomposed, that sugary matter continues per- 
fectly untouched, in consequence of the ferment 
(which would have converted it into spirit) being 
neutralized by the sulphurization. 

The ancients w r ere aware that the process of fer- 
mentation could thus be arrested, and hence both the 
interior and exterior of the vessels in which the new 
wine was contained, were said to have been covered 
with gypsum. 

The ancients used means, as well to dissipate 
or neutralize the alcohol, when generated, 
in their wines, as to prevent its generation. 

1st. The yeast was not only separated from the 
saccharine matter by subsidence, but the w r ine itself 
was passed through the filter. 

Says Pliny : " Ut plus capiamus sacco franguntur 
vires; et alia irritamenta excogilantur ; ac bibendi causa 
etiam venena conficiuntur ■." " That we may be able to 
drink a greater quantity of wine, we break, or deprive 
it of its strength, &c, by the filter, and various incen- 
tives to thirst are invented." 

NOTT. 



140 WATER MIXED WITH WINE. 

Says Horace : " Liquies vina" Car. lib. i., Ode 11. 
On these words the Delphin notes are as follows : 
" Be careful to prepare for yourself wine percolated, 
and defecated by the filter, and thus rendered sweet 
and more in accordance to nature and a female taste. 
Certainly the ancients strained and defecated their 
must through the filter repeatedly before they could 
have fermented ; and, by this process, taking away 
the feces that nourish and increase the strength of 
the wine, they rendered them more liquid, weaker, 
lighter and sweeter, and more pleasant to drink." 

2d. Where the alcohol generated by fermentation 
was not sufficiently dissipated by the filter or other- 
wise, its influence was counteracted by the addition 
of water. 

Hippocrates informs us that the wines of the an- 
cients were divided into dXiyocpopoi, zmdrroXvcpopoc, such 
as did and such as did not require dilution by water. 

Plutarch mentions three dilutions. Hesiod pres- 
cribed, during the summer months, three parts of 
water to one of wine. 

Athenseus has treated of the manner in which the 
ancients mingled their wines. He represents Archip- 
pus as inquiring : " Who of you has mingled an equal 
quantity of water with wine ? It is far better to use 
one part of wine and four of water." 

Nichocates considers one part of wane to five of 
water as the most desirable proportion. 

According to Homer, Pramnian and Maronian wines 
required twenty parts of water to one of wine : and 



ANCIENT GREEKS. 141 

Hippocrates considered twenty parts of water and 
one of Thasian wine to be a proper beverage. 

Pliny declares that Maronian wine, celebrated by 
Homer, had maintained its character ; for during the 
time of Mutianus, their consul, each pint was min- 
gled with eighty parts of water. 

In the receipt for making Cato's family wine, the 
vinegar and sea-water greatly exceeded the sapa ; 
and to the grape juice was to be added five times its 
quantity of pure water ; and from the whole the air 
was to be excluded ten days. Thus a celebrated 
wine was produced, that would keep till the follow- 
ing summer solstice. What the strength of such a 
wine must have been, and how it would be appre- 
ciated by wine-drinkers of our day, can readily be 
imagined. 

The ancient Greeks, like the ancient Eomans, hea- 
thens though they w^ere, furnished, by their exem- 
plary abstemiousness, a severe rebuke to modern 
christians. Their festivals were schools of tempe- 
rance and sobriety. The wines used on these occa- 
sions were invariably mixed wdth water. None other 
were allowed. Indeed, in reputable society, the 
practice of mingling their wine w r ith water was uni- 
versal. 

Those ancient authors, who treat upon domestic 
manners, abound with allusions to this usage. Hot 
water, tepid water, or cold water, was used for the 
dilution of wines, according to the season. 

The process was common, and reduced to system. 
" Sometimes they were so luxurious as to mix their 



142 ANCIENT GREEKS. 

wine with hot water, so as to secure perfect combi- 
nation, and then cool it down with ice or snow. In 
Italy the habit was so universally diffused, that there 
was an establishment at Eome for the public sale of 
water for mixing it with wine. 

It was called Thermopolium, and from the 
accounts left of it, was upon a large scale. The 
remains of several have been discovered among the 
ruins of Pompeii. Cold warm and tepid water was 
procurable at these establishments, as well as wine ; 
and the inhabitants resorted there for the purpose of 
drinking, and also sent their servants for the water. 
The fact of the practice being interwoven with the 
daily habits of the Greeks, may be judged from the 
circumstance of the Greek term for bowl or goblet 
xgarrip quasi Kspurnp ) — literally implying " a min 
gler," being derived from a verb signifying " to 
mingle." Each nation, as already shown, had its 
peculiar terms for inspissated wines which required 
mingling, as sapa, carcenum, sirceum, and hejpserna, 
each, too, had its peculiar term to denote wine not 
yet mingled, as the Greek ax^xyw, the Latin merum — 
(tirosh lo yayin.) 

Nor was it peculiar to pagans to mingle water with 
wine for beverage and at feasts ; nor to profane wri- 
ters to record the fact. It is written of wisdom, not 
only, that she had killed her fat things, but also that 
she had mingled her wine ; and so written by an 
inspired penman. 

But what gives the greater weight to the inference 
to be drawn from these usages of the ancients is, 



WEAKEST WISE CONSIDERED BEST. 143 

that they not only resorted to expedients to prevent 
the generation of alcohol, and to dissipate it when 
generated : 

But that they also pronouned that the better wine 
in which the generation of alcohol had been the 
most effectually prevented — or having been gen- 
erated, where it had been nrost effectually dissi- 
pated, or its potency otherwise counteracted or 
destroyed. 

Says Pliny: " Utilissimum vinum omnibus sacco viri- 
bus fractis" The most useful wine is that which has 
its strength broken or destroyed by the filter, " inve- 
terari vina saccisque castrari" and again, " Minus 
infestat nervos quod vetustate dulcescit" " Wines which 
become sweet by age are less injurious to the nerves." 
" Wines were rendered old, and deprived of their 
vigor by filtering." lib. xxiii., chap. 1. 

The same author mentions, (lib. xiv., chap. 2) a 
wine called i?ierliculam r Justus sobriam, viribus imwxiam, 
siquidem temulentiam sola non facit ; a wine which 
would not intoxicate, iners, without spirit, more 
properly termed, " sober wine," harmless, " and 
which alone would not inebriate." 

Columella speaks (lib. iii. chap. 2) of a wine 
called " Amethyston," unintoxicating. He adds, 
that it was -"a good wine — harmless," and called 
"iners" — weak — and would not affect the nerves. 

"Be careful," says the Delphin Notes on Horace's 
11th Ode, "to prepare for yourself wine percolated, 
and defoecated by the filter, and thus rendered sweet, 

NOTT 



144 TESTIMONY. 

and more in accordance to nature — and a female 
taste." 

Theophrastus called wine that had been " castra- 
txim" deprived of its strength, " ^Swou," "moral 
wine." "Nor Theophrastus only. The ancients, w T hen 
speaking of wine deprived of its potency, use the 
terms, " eunuchum" " effaminatum" " castratum" 
The corresponding Hebrew word is even used by 
Isaiah, i., 22, when speaking of wine reduced by 
water. 

Polybius, in a fragment of his 6th book, states : 
"Amon2f the Eomans the women were forbidden to 
drine wine ; they drank a wine which is called pas- 
sum (Latine, Passum), and this was made from dried 
grapes or raisins. As a drink, it very much resem- 
bled JEgosthenian and Cretan (yXsuxos), sweet wine, 
and which is used for the purpose of allaying thirst." 

Both Pliny and Varro treat of wine which was con- 
ceded to Eoman ladies, because it did not inebriate. 

Says Plutarch (in his Sjrmpos): " Wine is rendered 
old or feeble in strength when it is frequently fil- 
tered ; this percolation makes it more pleasant to the 
palate ; the strength of the wine is thus taken away, 
without any injury to its pleasing flavor. The 
strength being thus withdrawn or excluded, the wine 
neither inflames the head nor infests the mind and 
the passions, but is much more pleasant to drink. 
Doubtless defecation takes away the spirit of poten- 
cy that torments the head of the drinker ; and this 
being removed, the wine is reduced to a state both 
mild, salubrious and wholesome." 



UNINTOXICATING WINES. 145 

That unintoxicatinp; as well as intoxicatine: wines 
existed from remote antiquity, and that the former 
were held in higher estimation than the latter, by the 
wise and good, there can, I think, be no reasonable 
doubt. The evidence is unequivocal and plenary. 
Not indeed that the wines in use in Syria or the 
Holy Land were universally or even generally unin- 
toxicatinsr. We have demonstrative evidence that 
they are not so now, and presumptive evidence that 
they were not so formerly. We know that then, as 
now, inebriety existed ; and then, as now, the taste 
for inebriating wines may have been the prevalent 
taste ; and intoxicating wines the prevalent wines. 
Still, unintoxicating wines existed, and there were 
men who preferred such wines, and who have left 
on record the avowal of that preference. That these 
men w^ere comparatively few in number, and that the 
wines they recommended were not generally in 
request, does not surely render it the less probable 
that they were wines deserving commendation. It 
might then as now, and, in reference to this as well 
as other questions of right and duty, be said : 

" Broad is the road that leads to death, 
And thousands walk together there ; 
While wisdom shows a narrow path, 
With here and there a traveler." 

From the foregoing examination, it is apparent 
that the fruit of the vine, in the state it exists in the 
vat, the vineyard and the cluster, is called in the 
original by the sacred writers of the Old Testament, 
tiroshj yayin, ausis, hhemer, &c, that in the Greek 



146 TERMS USED IN OLD TESTAMENT. 

translation of these terms by the Seventy, it is called 
oinon, in the Latin translation, vmum, and in the Eng- 
lish, wine. And it is further apparent that the fruit 
of the vine, in the same state, is called by the same 
name by profane writers ; hence we meet in Aristotle 
with (oinon), wine of the vat ; in Livy, with (vinumj, 
wine of the field ; and in Cato as well as Isaiah, with 
(vinum pendens), w T ine of the cluster ; and hence, also* 
when we do so meet with these terms, though the 
presumption will be that they refer to the fruit of 
the vine in some state, it can only be determined in 
which by considering the attendant circumstances ; 
and for the obvious reason, that the terms yayin, oinos, 
and vinum, are generic terms, and embrace in their 
comprehensive meaning the fruit of the vine or pure 
blood of the grape, in all of the states in which it 
exists. 

But whatever question may be raised about the 
quality of other kinds of wine, there can be no ques- 
tion about this pendent wine of Cato ; for it is the 
wine of the cluster of Isaiah. This wine must be 
good wine, for it is wine approved of God ; and there 
was, as w T e have seen, a time when it was approved 
of man also ; and however it may now be spoken 
against, we believe it still to be not the less worthy 
of commendation on that account, because we believe 
it still to be what it then was (in the sense in which 
we use the terms), unintoxicating wine. Not that we 
affirm the pure blood of the grape, as expressed from 
the ripened cluster, to have been always absolutely 
unaffected by fermentation, but only slightly and 



QUESTION NOT OF DEGREE BUT OF TOTALITY. 147 

insensibly affected by it.* In olden time, wine, as we 
believe, was appreciated not as now, according to 
its strength, but according to its weakness. 



* The admission in Dr. Nott's Lectures, that there may perhaps be a 
very slight degree of alcohol, even in the wine allowed and pronounced 
good by the Bible, gave offence to many sincere friends of temper- 
ance, when they were first published ; and several able and esteemed' 
advocates of the cause felt it their duty to repudiate and condemn it 
as a needless and injurious concession. This matter has been referred 
to the author, with reference to the publication of this new edition of 
his Lectures, and we learn that afier carefully and candidly examining 
the whole of this criticism, he still does not feel it to be his duty to 
suppress or alter the text. And certainly no such liberties would 
be warrantable in the Editor. He will have discharged his duty, after 
advertising the reader that this is debatable ground, on which 
equally honest advoates of temperance truth maintain conflicting 
opinions. 

There is a question of science involved in this discussion, which is 
still an usettled one. It is well settled, indeed, that of the three stages 
of fermentation (vinous, acetous and putrefactive), alcohol is the product 
of the first. But when it has reached that stage, and therefore when 
alcohol enters into the expressed juice of the grape, is still undecided. 
One chemist has said that if the must is exposed to the air, for a few 
seconds only, it absorbs oxygen, and fermentation takes place. Others 
have given the opinion that a much longer time must elapse before the 
composition and quality of the liquid can be said to be tinged by the 
admission of alcohol. One of the latest writers, the author of the 
" Chemistry of Common Life," (see vol. i., p. 262, would seem to hold 
that no " sensible quantity of alcohol" had been found in the body of 
the liquid until the lapse of u three hours w of ordinary summer 
weather. But we do not understand that either of these views are ad- 
vanced as matured scientific opinions, and the result of actual experi- 
ments. We regard the point in hand, therefore, to be still an open 
question of science, to be hereafter determined by scientific men. 

The most accurate writers and speakers on Temperance, when they 
reason fiom the Bible, in connection with wines ( the products of the 



148 QUESTION NOT OF DECREE BUT OF TOTALITY. 

I am aware that there are those who consider the 
question of fermentation in wine A question not of 

DEGRJB^E BUT OF TOTALITY. 



brew-house and distillery are inventions sought out by man since the 
canon of Scripture closed), recognize this as aqnestion still in dispute. 
They do not speak of the good and bad wine of the Bible, as alcoholic 
and non-alcoholic nor as fermented and unfermented, but as intoxicat- 
ing and unintoxicating ; the unintoxicating being clearly the the good 
wine of the Bible, and the intoxicating being clearly the bad. 

As this point is an unsettled question in the science of temperance, so 
we regard these views in Dr. Nott's Lectures as among the disputed 
questions in its ethics and philosophy, which are to be cleared up by 
future inquiry and discussion. 

But let it be observed, even by those who regard this admission by 
the author as gratuitous, and unfortunate, that his Lectures elsewhere 
contend for abstinence, not only from intoxicating, alcoholic and fer- 
mented wine, but also from the freshly expressed juice of the grape. 
So that, if the author here is in error, he has not left the reader entirely 
wihout an antidote. In the closing paragraph of the fourth lecture, he 



"Still it does not follow tbat even the pure blood of the grape should now- be 
used by us as a beverage. The circumstances of society (since the grant to Jacob) 
have changed ; distillation has. been discovered ; chemistry has mixed new poisons 
with the wine cup ; and to save the church and the world from rum, it has be- 
come necessary, and it is, therefore, as we have already said, incumbent on us, in 
the spirit of the first law of Christian love, wholly to abstain from the use of vin- 
ous beverage of every sort." 

Whatever fault may be found, therefore, with these particular pas- 
sages in Dr. Nott's Lectures, their general tenor, it will be seen, teaches 
temperance doctrine which is sufficiently comprehensive and severe. 
And it is supported by an argument so authoritative and conclusive, 
that it must ever silence all cavilers at Abstinence, who are not bold 
enough also to question the inspiration of Scripture : u It is good neither 
to cat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother 
stumbleth, or is offended, or is made locale." — Romans, xiv., 21. 



QUESTION NOT OF DEGREE BUT OF TOTALITY. 149 

Pure alcohol, say they, is poison ; and because it 
is so, every beverage in which alcohol is contained, 
how minute soever the quantity, must be poison 
also. This though plausible, is not conclusive ; and 
were it so, the water we drink, nay, the very air we 
breathe, would be poison ; for oxygen and nitrogen, 
of which it is composed, are so ; and so is every mix- 
ture of the two in any other proportions than the 
proportion in which the Grod of nature has united 
them in the vital air ; and yet, when so united, they 
are breathed not only with impunity, but of necessity, 
as an essential element of life. In like manner, 
though alcohol be poison, and though every mixture 
of it in any greater proportion than that in which 
God has united it with those other elements in the 
" yure blood of the grape" may also be poison, it does 
not follow, if so united, it must be so. 

On the contrary, the beverage thus formed may be 
not only innocuous, but nutritious and renovating, as 
the noble Canaro found it when he drank the fresh 
new wine of the recent vintage ; and yet this same 
beverage, so bland and healthful, while its original 



Nature and Science unite, with a thousand tongues, to plead for and 
enforce the doctrines of Total Abstinence. But if, through lack of 
sufficient knowledge or the imperfections of human reason, the principle 
is ever for a moment involved in doubt, we have only to fall back 
upon this sublime saying of the Apostle Paul, and which is accepted 
by the whole Christian world. Here, at least, our author plants his 
feet on ground which is incontestable, and as firm as the everlasting 
hills. Nay, it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away than one 
tittle of the law to fail. — [Editor.] 



150 ALCOHOL IN NEW WINE INNOCUOUS. 

elemental proportions are maintained, may increase 
in potency, as its contained alcohol is increased by 
progressive fermentation, till, changed in its nature, 
it becomes what the Bible significantly calls it, a 
"mocker;" executing on those who drink it a ven- 
geance which the Bible no less significantly describes, 
by comparing it to the bite of the serpent and the 
sting of the adder. 

It is urged, I am aware, that these terms, and terms 
like these, w T hett applied to wine of some sort, are to 
be understood- not as conveying counsel to refrain 
from the use of bad wine, but merely to avoid excess 
in the use of good. But according to what principle 
of interpretation is this urged ? Is wine, in distinc- 
tion from all the other bounties of Providence, always 
of good quality, that wine of bad quality should 
never have been spoken against by any writer, either 
sacred or profane ? And, as if this were proven to 
be the case, are we bound, contrary to experience, 
contrary to reason, contrary to express declarations 
of Scripture, when we meet with passages in which 
wine is spoken of in terms of reprobation, and as a 
base article and an article to be avoided ; are w r e 
bound in such cases, in disregard both of the spirit 
and the letter of the text, to understand the terms 
employed, not as implying the avoidance of a bad 
article, but merely as a caution against the abuse 
of a good one? 

Or, if bad wine as well as good wine exists, then 
it may be asked whether good wine, among all the 
good creatures of God, is alone liable to abuse, that 



GOOD WINE LIABLE TO ABUSE. 151 

it should on that account be singled out and spoken 
against as a vile thing, and to be avoided? Are not 
corn, and oil, and milk, and honey, as well as wine, 
abused ? Or, is the abuse of these not sinful, that 
neither of them on that account is ever styled the 
"mocker?" employed as a symbol of wrath, said to 
occasion wo and sorrow, that neither of these is 
forbidden to kings, forbidden to be brought into the 
house of the Lord, forbidden to be looked upon, or 
said to bite like a serpent or sting like an adder ? 

If because good wine can be abused, such wine 
deserves to be styled a "mocker," and can fitly be 
employed in the same state, and in allusion to the 
same attributes, as a symbol of wrath, as well as of 
mercy, why may not sunlight and Sabbaths, and even 
the visitation of the Holy Spirit, be spoken of in 
the same manner; for all these (good and glorious 
in themselves) are, as well as wine, liable to abuse, 
and the abuse of these, as well as the abuse of wine, 
is sinful; and yet no such array of texts against 
these, or either of these, can be found in either 
Testament, as meets the eye against wine in both. 

The fact that good wine may be abused, but ill 
accounts for the application to such wine of those 
terms of reprobation replied to wine of some sort 
so often in the Bible. To justify such an application 
of such terms, in such frequency, it should seem that 
not only good wine, which in the use might be 
abused, must have existed, but bad wine, and wine 
therefore unfit for use, must also have existed. 



152 WINE COMMENDED GOOD. 

Since good and bad wine both exist now, why 
should they not have existed then? And if both 
existed then (as the Bible assures us it did), why 
should it be doubted when wine is commended, that 
the commendation respects the former kind of wine ; 
and when wine is condemned, that the condemnation 
respects the latter kind ? Does either the honor of 
religion or the analogy of faith require that it should 
be otherwise? 

When commending wine, if, in place of commend- 
ing the weak, nutrtious, unintoxicating wines of 
nature, the Bible commends the strong innutritious, 
intoxicating wines of art, it does so in contravention 
of the will of God, as everywhere else expressed; 
and the doing of this, here stands forth an isolated 
fact, at variance with all the other facts recorded in 
the Scriptures, a fact unexplained and unexplainable. 

All the other articles recommended as food or 
beverage, are not only pronounced good, but are 
practically found to be so. Elsewhere, in reference 
to articles of diet, the word and providence of God 
are in harmony ; here only at variance ; for, however 
bland, refreshing and life-sustaining the nutritious, 
unintoxicating wines of nature may be, the strong, 
exciting, intoxicating wines of art are, and have ever 
proved themselves to be, both life and soul-destroying. 

Against the use of such wines, God hath not left 
himself without a witness in his Providence. From 
the chalice that contains it is audibly breathed 
out the serpent's hiss, and visibly darted forth the 
adder's sting. Around this chalice ruins are strewed 



CAD WINE CONDEMNED BY NATURE. 153 

• — strewed by the mocker— -in which ruins there is 
a voice that speaks, and it speaks for G od, and its 
language is, Touch not, taste not, handle not. Here 
there can be no mistake. That wo, and sorrow, 
and crime, and disease, flow from this inebriating 
chalice, none can deny ; nor can any sophistry shel- 
ter its bewildering, crime-producing contents from 
deserved reprobation, or bring its use as a beverage 
within the sanction of the sanctuary. 

The books of nature and revelation were, written 
by the same unerring hand* The former is more full 
and explicit in relation to the physical, the latter in 
relation to the moral laws of our nature ; still, how- 
ever, where both touch on the same subject, they 
will ever be found, when rightly interpreted, to be 
in harmony. 

There was a time when the Copernican system, the 
truth of which was stamped on the phases of the 
planets, and proclaimed in the revolution of the 
stars, was pronounced a heresy, because it was 
believed to be irreconcilable with the language of the 
Bible. Councils decreed that the earth stood still, 
and that the sun and stars revolved around it. Regard- 
less of that decree, the sun and stars maintained 
their unalterable position 5 and the earth, unawed, 
moved onward in its orbit, and revolved on its axis ; 
and it has continued to do so, till mankind, familiar- 
ized to its movements, see no longer any contradic- 
tion between those movements and the language in 
which they w r ere formerly spoken of by patriarchs 
and prophets. 



154 NATURE AND REVELATION NOT AT VARIANCE* 

Nature and revelation are as little at variance on 
the wine question as on other questions, and when 
rightly consulted, they will be found to be so. It is 
not in the text, but in the interpretation, that men 
have felt straitened in their consciences ; and though 
this feeling should continue, unless the providence of 
God changes, it will not alter the facts of the case. 

In vain will sophists teach, or councils decree, 
that intoxicating wine, wine the mocker, is good 
wine, and fit for beverage, so long as God in his 
providence proclaims that it is not. In despite of the 
teachings of sophists and the decrees of councils, the 
purpose of God will stand, and human arrogance con- 
tinue to be rebuked, till it shall be felt that the laws 
of nature are sacred, and that it is as fatal to resist 
as idle to reason against the will of Him who 
ordained them. 

To condemn as sin yer se, all use of intoxicating 
wine on the one hand, and to vindicate its use as a 
common beverage on the other, appears equally 
erroneous. 

The wine of the condemned was doubtless an 
intoxicating wine, disallowed to worshippers in the 
house of the Lord, disallowed to kings, rejected by 
the Saviour, and yet it might be given to the sad 
of heart, as strong drink might to those ready to 
perish. 

Doubtless other intoxicating wines follow the same 
rule. None of them was made in vain ; each has 
its appropriate use, and may be used whenever the 
use is beneficial, and to the extent it is beneficial ; 



MEATS AND HERBS, GOOD AND BAD. 155 

and each is to be avoided when its use would be 
injurious, as experience shows it to be, when used as 
custom sanctions its use as a beverage. 

It is true that wine, as well as flesh and herbs, and 
bread and milk and honey, is contained in the orig- 
inal grant of good things to man, but this implies 
no sanction of bad wine, any more than any other 
bad article. 

Because flesh is contained in the same grant, no 
one feels called upon to defend the use of the flesh 
of horses, or of dogs, or of reptiles; nay, not even 
the flesh of kin-e, when diseased or rendered noxious 
by putrescence or otherwise. Neither does any one, 
because herbs are contained in that grant, feel called 
upon to defend the use of henbane or deadly night- 
shade, or even of garden herbs, after having become 
wilted, and especially after having become delete- 
rious by decay. 

, As little, because wine is contained in that grant, 
can the wines of Sodom be defended ; nay, nor even 
wines from the vines of Eschol, or of Lebanon, after 
they shall havebeen rendered deleterious' by the pro- 
cess of fermentation, or any other process through 
which it may have passed, before reaching ultimate, 
utter putrefaction. 

i Who ever thought, because bread and milk are 
sanctioned in the Bible, that therefore bread must be 
eaten after it had become mouldy by age, or milk, 
after it had become sour by fermentation ? 

From the moment the animal is slain, the herb 
gathered, or the cluster of the wine plucked, the pro- 

NOTT. 



156 MAN TREATED AS A RATIONAL CREATQRE. 

cess of decay commences, which, unless arrested, 
will continue in each, till all alike are rendered un 
fit for use, by progressive fermentation. 

With wines, as with herbs and meats, some were 
originally comparatively good, and some compara- 
tively bad ; and some which w r ere originally good 
became bad through mistaken treatment,the progres- 
sive process of fermentation, or some other inciden- 
tal process through which they may have passed. 

Meats recently slaughtered,herbs recently gathered, 
and wines recently expressed from the cluster, are 
usually the most healthful, nutritious and refreshing. 
And though wine perfectly free from alcohol may 
not be obtainable, and though its most perfect state 
be the state in which it is expressed from the cluster, 
still it may be more or less objectionable, as it devi- 
ates more or less from that state till it becomes pos- 
itively deleterious and intoxicating. 

Though God's grant to man covers wine among 
other good things, it designates no particular kind, it 
gives no directions as to the mode of preparation, or 
the time when it is most fit for use. These and simi- 
lar instructions are to be looked for, not in the book 
of revelation, but of nature. 

Man is a rational creature, and God treats him as 
such. The great store-house of nature is flung open 
before him, and permission is given him to slay or 
gather and eat ; not indeed inconsiderately and in- 
discriminately, but of such and only such as are 
suited to his nature, and as are good for food. 



ABSTINENCE PROM BAD WINE A DUTY. 157 

In the selection and preparation of the articles, 
reason is to be exercised, experience consulted, the 
good distinguished from the bad, the precious from 
the vile. 

That Patriarchs and Prophets drank wine, and 
that the Scriptural right to drink it still remains 
unimpaired, there can be no doubt ; still, in making 
the selection, other directions than what the Bible 
contains must be followed. Here, as we have said, 
reason must be exercised, and experience consulted. 
Who, in the selection of herbs, or milk, or meat, 
would venture to take a contrary course ; or who, 
having taken it, would not find in the sequel his 
temerity rebuked? 

How often, in the course of events, have herbs, or 
meat, or milk, proved poisonous, and produced dis- 
ease or death ? In cases of this sort, how unavail- 
ing to declare that these articles, because included in 
the original grant, were not poisonous, when God 
declared in His providence that they were. Herbs, 
and meat, and milk, stand on the same footing as 
wine, and we only insist that the same discrimination 
should be exercised in relation to the latter that is 
exercised in relation to the former. The question, so 
far as good wine is concerned, is a question of expe- 
diency, and only of expediency, and abstinence be- 
comes a duty only when indulgence would be injuri- 
ous. But abstinence from bad wine is always a duty ; 
and whether intoxicating wine, w T ine that enervates 
the reason, defiles the conscience, destroys the con- 
stitution, and peoples the prisonhouse with criminals 



153 WINE COMPARED WITH OTHER DIET. 

and the graveyard with victims, be not bad wine, 
will hardly. where prejudice is not indulged and appe- 
tite consulted, at this late day, be made a question. 

Perfect purity nowhere exists on this crime-curst 
planet. Earth supplies neither air, or food, or beve- 
rage, suited to immortal natures. Even the well, at 
the entrance of which Jesus Christ revealed to the 
woman of Samaria his Messiahship, contained not the 
water of life. Jacob, who drank at that well, was 
dead; the Patriarchs who drank at it were dead. 
Were perfect purity insisted on, man could neither 
eat, or drink or breathe. This insisted on, would ex- 
clude the mechanic from the workshop, the husband- 
man from the harvest field, and the worshipper from 
the temple of his God. But it is not insisted on — 
at least, not elsewhere — why then should it be in- 
sisted on here ? 

It is enough, if wine be placed on the same footing 
as other articles of diet, with respect to each of 
which, the question in relation to deleterious qual- 
ities is a question of degree, not of totality. 

If we procure the best articles in our power, it is 
all that can be required of us ; and it is only those 
articles which contain deleterious ingredients in such 
quantity or such proportion as produce disease of 
body or mind, the use of which is to be avoided. 
Here, not temperance, but abstinence is a duty. 
The evil to be apprehended in the use of deleterious 
ingredients often depends less on quantity than in- 
tensity. A single drop of pure alcohol may inflame 
some point in the mucus membrane of the stomach. 






BAD WINE ALONE INJURIOUS. 159 

with which it comes in contact, and thus produce 
the inception of a disease which may afterwards 
diffuse itself over the entire surface of that vital or- 
gan, which drop might have been innocuous, or at 
least have produced no appreciable injury, had it 
been diluted to a certain extent by water. 

In estimating the effect of other agencies than poi- 
son, intensity as well as quantity must be taken into 
the account. There is a temperature conducive to 
life and health, and there is a temperature above 
and below which life becomes extinct. The rays 
of solar light and heat, so grateful to the- eye and 
the body under certain circumstances, become as 
distressful as destructive, when their intensity is in- 
creased, as it may be by the intervention of a burn- 
ing glass. 

Although the heat concentrated in a spark of fire 
or a drop of boiling water might blister some small 
and delicate portion of the human cuticle with which 
it might chance to come in contact, still the effect 
of that same heat, if imparted to a volume of water 
sufficient for the immersion of the body, if apprecia- 
ble at all, might be only bland and genial. 

In diet as in respiration, the action of one element 
may neutralize that of another; or its own action 
may depend, as in the case of light and heat, less on 
quantity than concentration. 

Hence, w r ine in which its (entire) saccharine mat- 
ter has been converted by continuous fermentation 
into alcohol, may be highly exciting and deleterious ; 
and, at the same time, w T ine in which the process of 



160 TOTAL ABSTINENCE INCUMBENT. 

fermentation is inceptive merely, and in which but 
a small portion of its saccharine matter has been so 
converted, may be both nutricious and healthful ; and 
the more so, when the proportion in which these 
elements exist in the cask, is the proportion in which 
they existed in the cluster or the vat ; as that pro- 
portion may be the proportion best suited to the 
constitution of man, for whose use, in this state, 
wine has been from the beginning spontaneously 
furnished by the Creator himself. 

Still it does not follow that even the pure blood 
of the grape should now be used by us as a beverage. 
The circumstances of society (since the grant to 
Jacob) have changed ; distillation has been discov- 
ered; chemistry has mingled new poisons in the 
wine cup ; and to save the church and the world from 
ruin, it has become necessary, and it is therefore, as 
we have already said, incumbent on us, in the spirit 
of the great law of Christian love, wholly to abstain 
from the use of vinous beverage of every sort. Even 
as medicine, intoxicating liquors will seldom be re- 
quired ; other and safer remedies exist. As an ele- 
ment at the Lord's Supper, the use of wine will in- 
deed be perpetual. This, its sacramental use, will be 
considered in the next lecture; to the consideration 
of which, the distinction in wines and the principle 
governing the selection hinted at in this, may be 
considered as preliminary. On all these several 
questions, research and caution are necessary, for all 
the circumstances that bear on such must be taken 
into account if we would arrive at the true result. 



LECTURE No. V. 



WINE— ITS SACRAMENTAL USE. 

The wine made use of at the Paschal Supper, at the wedding at Cana 
of Galilee — And the wine recommended to Timothy. 

In the preceding lecture we have shown that differ- 
ent kinds of wine existed, and were known to exist 
from remote antiquity, some of which were salu- 
brious, sober wines, and some deleterious and intox- 
icating. 

Since these things are so, since different kinds of 
wine exist, and are known to have existed from remote 
antiquity— to ascertain which of these, whether salu- 
brious and sober, or insalubrious and intoxicating 
wine was used by our Lord in the Sacramental Sup- 
per, it w T ill be of use first to ascertain which of 
these kinds of wine was used at the Paschal Supper. 

And here it is obvious to remark that the fruit of 
the vine in none of its forms constituted any part of 
the original institution, as will appear from the thir- 
teenth chapter of Exodus. On the contrary, on the 
fourteenth of Nisan, a lamb without blemish, was by 
each family to be eaten, with bitter herbs ; eaten 
standing with their loins girded, their- shoes on their 

feet, their staves in their hands, and eaten in haste, 
161 



162 UNINTOXICATING WINE USED AT PASSOVER. 

In whatever form the fruit of the vine w T as subse- 
quently used, it was probably introduced after the 
settlement in Canaan — when the guests, in place of 
standing ( as appears from John, xii., 23 ), reclined on 
their left arm on couches placed round the table — a 
posture which, according to the writers in the Tal- 
mud, was an emblem of that rest and freedom which 
God had granted to his people. 

But at whatever time wine was introduced at the 
paschal supper, it might be presumed, in the absence 
of evidence to the contrary, that the kind selected 
would be in keeping with the nature of the ordi- 
nance. And this it should seem could not well be 
intoxicating wine, since this would but ill accord 
with a solemnity in which bitter herbs were to be 
eaten, and from which leaven was to be excluded. 
"Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven days; and 
there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, 
neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy 
quarters. 5 ' 

Gesenius declares that the Hebrew word which 
the English translators have rendered leaven, applies 
to wine as well as bread. 

" The word chomets," says Mr. Herschell, a con- 
verted Jew, " has a wider signification than that 
which is generally attached to ' leaven,' by which it 
is rendered in the English Bible, and applies to the 
fermentation of corn in any form, to beer, and to all 
fermented liquors." 

The Eev. C.F. Frey says, " that during the pass- 
over Jews dare not drink any liquor made from 



TESTIMONY. 163 

grain, nor any that has passed through the process of 
fermentation," 

The testimony of Mr. Frey is corroborated by 
another Hebrew writer, who declares " that their 
drink during the time of the feast is either pure 
water or raisin wine prepared by themselves, but no 
kind of leaven must be mixed therein." 

And M. M. Noah, Esq., says in a recent publica- 
tion : " unfermented liquor or wine free from alcohol 
was alone used in those times, as it is used at the 
present day at the passover." 

But not to insist on this. Whatever the kind of 
wine made use of at the paschal supper, it was 
always, if the writers in the Talmud or even the 
Christian fathers are to be credited, diluted with 
water. # 



* Dr. Lightfoot (I quote from Home's introduction to the Practical 
Study of the Scriptures) Dr. Lightfoot has collected from the Talmud a 
variety of passages relative to the Jewish mode of celebrating the pass- 
over ; from which we have abridged the following particulars calculated 
to illustrate the history of our Lord's last passover : 

1. The guests being seated around the table, they mingled a cup of 
wine with water, over which the master of the family gave thanks and 
then drank it off. The thanksgiving for the wioe was, " Blessed be 
thou, Lord, who hast created the fruit of the vine. Blessed be thou 
for this good day and for this convocation which thou hast given us for 
joy and rejoicing. Blessed be thou, Lord, who hast sanctified Israel 
and the times." 

2. After which they washed their hands and the table was furnished 
with the paschal lamb, bitter herbs and cakes of unleavened bread. 

3. The person presiding took a leaf of salad, and having blessed God 
for creating the fruit of the ground, he ate it, as did the other guests ; 
after which, the table being cleared, the children were instructed in 

Nott. 



164 TESTIMONY. 

But if the wine made use of in the paschal sup- 
per was diluted with water, then probably the 
wine made use of at the supper of our Lord was also 
diluted. 

For we are told that, having on the night before 
his passion retired to an inner chamber at Jerusalem 
and celebrated for the last time the paschal supper, 
he took bread and the cup, and having blessed and 
brake the one, and poured out the other, he gave both 
to his disciples in token of his love and as memorials 



the nature of their feasts. In like manner the Saviour made use of the 
Lord's Supper to declare the great mercy of God in our redemption, for 
it shows forth the Lord's death until he come. 

4. Replacing the supper they explained the import of the bitter 
tierbs and paschal lamb, repeating the 113th and 114th psalms, with 
j,n eucharistic prayer. 

5. The hands were again washed, and the master, after an ejacula- 
tory prayer, proceeded to break and bless a cake of unleavened bread, 
which he distributed, reserving a portion thereof for the last morsel ; 
or the rule, after the destruction of the Temple, was to conclude by 
eating a small piece of unleavened bread. 

In like manner our Lord, upon instituting the sacrament of the 
sucharist, which was prefigured by the passover, took bread, and 
Having blessed it, brake it and gave it to his disciples, saying, Take, eat, 
this is my body which is broken for you. This do in remembrance 
of me. 

6. They then ate the remainder of the cake with bitter herbs, dip- 
ping the bread into the charoseth or sauce provided. To which 
practice the Evangelists Matthew and Mark allude ; into which 
our Savior is supposed to have dipped the sop which he gave to 
Judas. 

1. Next they ate the flesh of the peace offerings which had been 
sacrificed, and then the paschal lamb, which was followed by returning 
♦■hanks to God. 



lord's supper. 165 

f tf his death; which solemnity was thereafter to be 
repeated, that by its repetition his death might be 
showed forth until his second coming. 

As our Lord in this latter ordinance, for aught that 
appears, made use of the elements previously pre- 
pared for the former ordinance, it may fairly be con- 
cluded, that if water was mingled in the wine, con- 
tained in the cup made use of in the former, it w r as 
also mingled in the wine contained in the cup made 
use of in the latter. 



8. A cup of wine was then filled, over which they blessed God, and 
hence it was called the cup of blessing. To which circumstance Paul 
alludes when he says : u The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not 
the communion of the body of Christ ?" It was at this part of the 
Paschal Supper that the Lord took the cup and said : " This is the New 
Testament in my blood which is shed for you and for many for the re- 
mission of sins." 

9. The last cup was called the cup of halJel, over which they sang 
or recited the Psalms from the 115th to the 118th inclusive, and con- 
cluded. 

In like manner our Lord and his disciples, when they had sung an 
hymn, departed to the Mount of Olives. 

So much in relation to the wine of the Passover. 

Besides the passover, there was a mingling of wine with water at the 
feast of the tabernacle in the Temple, referred to by our Lord, John, 
vii., 37 and 38, and fully described by the Talmudists: 

11 When the fruits of sacrifice were laid on the altar, one of the priests 
with a golden tankard went to the fountain Siloion and there filled it 
with water. He returned back into the court of the temple through 
the water gate. The trumpet sounded. On the altar stood two basins, 
one containing wine, and the other empty, into which the water was 
poured ; and they were poured into each other by way of oblation. 
The ceremony was in honor of God; and in gratitude for supplying 
water to the children of Israel in the wilderness." 



166 NECESSITY OF DILUTION. 

And thus the Fathers of the church believed, and 
the early councils authoritatively ordered.* But if the 
wine made use of in these offices of religion was not 
intoxicating, ivliy was it diluted with ivater ? Does not 
its dilution prove that it was intoxicating wine? Cer- 



* The Council of Trent decreed ( ch. 7, the mass): " Further, the 
Holy Council reminds all men that the priests are commanded by the 
church to mix water in the wine in the cup, when they offer the sacri- 
fice ; partly because Christ the Lord is believed to have done the some, 
and partly because water together with blood flowed from his side, 
which sacrament is brought to remembrance by this mixture." 

Says Cave, in his Primitive Christianity, speaking of the early 
Christians : 

41 Their sacramental wine was generally diluted and mixed with water, 
as is evident from Justin Martyr, Ireneus, Cyprian and others. Cyprian 
in a long epistle expressly pleads for it, as the only true and warranta- 
ble tradition, derived from Christ and his Apostles, and endeavors to 
find out many mystical significations intended by it, and seems to inti- 
mate as if he had been peculiarly warned of God so to observe it." 

In like manner the sacramental wine was originally diluted in the 
Episcopal Church ; and among the changes made in the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, is expressly mentioned. " The omitting the rubric that 
ordered water to be mixed with the wine " used in the eucharist. 
Wheatly, in his apology for this omission, says that Dr. Lightfoot ob- 
serves from the Babylonish Talmud that this (" the fruit of the vine ") 
was a term the Jews used in their blessings for wine mixed with water. 
He admits that before the time of Origen the mixture was the general 
practice of the church. That F. Cyprian pleads strenuously for the 
mixture, and urges it from the practice and example of our Lord. 
" And indeed," says he, "it must be confessed that the mixture has 
in all ages been the general practice, and for that reason was enjoined, 
as has been noticed above, to be continued in our church by the first 
reformers." 

Says Palmer, in his antiquities of the English ritual : " The custom 
of mingling water with the wine of the eucharist is one which prevailed 



PROBABILITY INCREASED. 167 

tainly not. Other qualities apart from its contained 
alcohol may have rendered dilution necessary. The 
unintoxicating wines of antiquity were often thick 
and even ropy, and therefore required to be diluted 
to fit them for convenient and sometimes for health- 
ful and pleasurable use. * 



universally in the Christian church from the earliest ages. Justin Mar- 
tyr of Syria, Ireneus of Gaul, Clemens of Alexandria, and Cyprian of 
Carthage, bear testimony to its prevalence in the second and third cen- 
turies. There is in fact no sort of reason to deny that the Apostles 
themselves had the same custom. It is even probable that the cup 
which our Savior blessed at the lust supper contained water as well as 
wine, since it appears that it was generally the practice of the Jews to 
mix the paschal cup, which our Savior used in instituting the sacrament 
of his blood." 

Bernard, in speaking of persons who thought water essential, adds : 
* l The judgment of theologians is certain, that consecration is valid 
even if water be omitted, though he who omits it is guilty of a serious 
offence." 

In the Church of England the wine of the eucharist was always no 
doubt mixed with water. In the canons of the Anglo-Saxon church, 
published in the time of King Edgar, it is enjoined^that no priest shall 
celebrate the liturgy, unless he have all things that pertain to the holy 
eucharist, that is, a pure oblation, pure wine and pure water. In after 
ages we find no canons made to enforce the use of water, for it was an 
established custom : certainly none can be more canonical or more con- 
formable to the practice of the primitive church, 

* Pliny says it was common in Italy and Greece to boil their wines : 
thus the must was sometimes boiled down to one-half and sometimes 
to one-third part of its quantity. The wines of Arcadia, as we have 
seen, were declared by Aristotle to be so thick that they dried up in 
the goat skins ; that it was the practice to scrape them off, and dissolve 
the scrapings in water. Very similar to the wine? of Arcadia were the 
wines of Lebanon and Helbon, spoken of in Scripture. The wines of 
Syria, among the best of which were those of Lebanon, are, says a 

Noxr. 



168 PROBABILITY INCREASED. 

Since then the unintoxicating wines of antiquity 

required dilution, and since the wines made use of in 
the offices of religion were actually diluted, the fact 
of their dilution increases rather than diminishes the 
presumption that the wines so made use of were un- 
intoxicating wines. 

On the whole, since the bread of the passover 
must be unleavened, that is unfermented ; since the 
use, nay, even the possession of leaven was prohibited 
during this festival ; since many of the modern Jews, 
who may be supposed to understand the usages of 
their fathers better than we do, refuse even now the 
use of fermented wine in the cup of blessing which 
they bless — to say the least, it is not improbable 



modern traveler, u prepared by boiling immediately after they are ex- 
pressed from the grape." There is reason to believe, says W. G. Brown, 
that this mode of boiling their wines was in general practice among the 
ancients. It is still retained in some parts of Provence, where it is 
called cooked wine. " The wines of Syria," says Mons. Volney, u are 
of three sorts, the red, the white, and the yellow. The white, which 
are the most rare, are so bitter as to be disagreeable : the two others, 
on the contrary, are too sweet and sugary. This arises from their being 
boiled, which makes them resemble the baked wines of Provence. 
The general custom of the country is to reduce the must to two-thirds 
of its quantity. 

u The yellow wine is much esteemed among our merchants, under 
the name of Golden Wine (Vin d'or), which has been given to it from 
its color. The most esteemed is produced from the hill sides of the 
Zouk, a village of Mazbeth, near Antoura. It is not necessary to heat 
it, but is too sugary. Such are the wines of Lebanon, so boasted by the 
Grecian and Roman epicures. It is probable that the inhabitants of 
Lebanon have made no change in their ancient method of making 
wines, nor in the culture of their vines." — Volney 1 s Travels in Egypt 
and Syria, vol, ii., ch, 29,/). 206, ed. 1*788. 



ARGUMENT FKOM USE INCONCLUSIVE. ] G9 

that ttnferntented wine as well as unfermented bread 
was made use of at the paschal supper, and if at the 
paschal supper, then probably at the supper of our 
Lord. 

Nor let it be forgotten, that however much may of 
late have been said by the disciples about fermented, 
that is, intoxicating wine, the Master has said nothing 
of the use of wine of any kind in that solemnity. 
Nor is the term wine ever once employed by the 
sacred writers in connection with the sacramental 
supper. It was the " cup " that Jesus Christ gave 
to his disciples ; and neither fermented nor unfermented 
ivine, but the "fruit of the vine" are the terms 
by which the contents of that cup are, by him that 
poured it out designated. And surely the pure blood 
of the grape, as it is expressed from the cluster, is 
quite as intelligible and striking an emblem of the 
blood of Christ, and quite as truly the fruit of the 
vine, as that same blood of the grape will be after 
continued fermentation shall have converted a nutri- 
tive and healthful into an intoxicating and deleterious 
beverage. And if it be so, then surely it may be 
used on sacramental occasions without scruple and 
without offence. 

As to the dilution of the paschal and sacramental 
wine with water, the usage may be said to have been 
peculiarly pertinent and proper, if the wine itself 
w T as unfermented w T ine, because such wine often, if 
not usually, required dilution. 

If these things are so — if the wine used in primi- 
tive times and on sacred occasions, and whether fer- 



170 MARRIAGE AT CAN A AT GALILEE, 

mented or unfermented. was diluted with water — 
then how inconclusive the argument drawn from such 
usage, in favor of the use. as a common beverage, of 
fermented wine without dilution ! 

As to the wine at Cana of Galilee, if it be arrogant 
to assume that it was certainly not intoxicating, it is 
no less arrogant to assume that it certainly was intoxi- 
cating. All that the sacred text communicates is, 
that water was converted into wine ; but the question 
as to the kind of wine, is left an open question ; and 
the same, for aught assorted to the contrary, may 
have been the wine of Helbon or of Lebanon, or of 
any of those numerous kinds of wine alluded to by 
Pliny. Some of which wines were bitter, poisonous 
and stupefactive ; some sweet, healthful and invigo- 
rating ; and some acid, fragrant and refreshing. Amid 
this variety, which was selected as the most appro- 
priate for manifesting the Saviour's power and good- 
ness in his first miracle, has not been told us, and can, 
therefore, only be inferred from the occasion, the per- 
son performing the miracle, and the circumstances 
under which it was performed. 

What, then, was the occasion, who were the 
guests, who the person performing the miracle, and 
at what stage of the entertainment was it performed ? 

The occasion was the solemnization of an ordinance 
of God ; the guests w r ere grave, devout persons ; Jesus, 
the mother and disciples of Jesus, were there ; the 
person performing the miracle w r as Jesus himself; 
the time was near the close of the entertainment, 
when the guests, it would seem, had already well 



PROBABLY "GOOD" WINE. 171 

drank, and the original supply of wine provided 
was exhausted, and the additional supply furnished 
at this late hour was, in the judgment of the master 
of the festival, of the best quality. 
j Had Pliny, Columella, Theophrastus, Plutarch, 
and other ancient sages, some of whom were cotemr 
porary with the Apostles, presided at this festival, 
the question at issue as to the kind of wine miracu- 
lously supplied, would have been decided; for these 
men have sat in judgment on the quality of wines, 
and pronounced the weaker, unintoxicating wines 
the better w T ines. 

But these men did not preside at this festival, and 
whether the master of the feast, who did, agreed 
with them in their opinion concerning the relative 
goodness of wines, we are not informed, and will 
not, therefore, presume authoritatively to decide ; 
but, on the contrary, leave the question whether the 
Saviour of the world miraculouskv supplied on this 
occasion deleterious, exciting, intoxicating wine, or 
sober, moral, unintoxicating wine, to be passed on 
by the enlightened reason and conscience of others. 

For ourselves, however, we may be permitted to 
say, in view of all the circumstances of the case, we 
incline to the opinion that the wine declared by the 
master of the feast to be "good wine " was good wine 
— good in the sense that Pliny, Columella or Theo- 
phrastus w^ould have used the the term " good " when 
applied to wine ; that is, good because nutritious and 
unintoxicating ; and of which the guests, even at such 
an hour,might drink freely and without apprehension, 



172 taul's directions to timothy. 

because it was wine which, though it would refresh 
and cheer, would not derange, demoralize or intoxi- 
cate. 

But be this as it may, did not Paul expressly 
recommend the use of wine to Timothy ? He did so. 
But it was but little, and that medicinally. His 
words are, " Drink no longer water, but use a little 

wine for thy stomach's sake, and thine often infirmi- 
ties." Both the quantity and the quality of the 
wine recommended here are indicated. 

Timothy at the time was an invalid., and Paul was 
prescribing for him as such. The quantity of wine 
prescribed was small, the kind medicinal, for it was 
prescribed for his stomach's sake and his many infir- 
mities. 

Though we do not know what all the infirmities 
of Timothy were, we do know that among them was 
a diseased or disordered stomach; and the wine pre- 
scribed, be the kind what it may, must by the 
apostle have been deemed good lor such a. stomach. 

Now at the time this prescription was given, 
there was in use, as we have seen, wines, the pure 
juice or blood of the grape, in the state in which it 
was expressed — also wines containing a diminished 
quantity of saccharine matter and an increased quan- 
tity of alcohol, produced by converting the former 
into the latter by continued fermentation — as well 
as wines to which drugs had been added, most of 
which were intoxicating, and some of which, as Ar- 
istotle and Pliny both affirm, were deleterious, and 
"produced headaches, dropsy, madness, dysentery 



EFFECTS OF ALCOHOL OH Till, STOMACH. 173 

and stomach complaints ;" and some of which, on 
the contrary, as the same authors affirm, were salur 
brioue and medicinal, and particularly commended 
for enfeebled ov "diseased stomachs/' 

Although we do not know the effect produced 
upon the human stomach, by all the poisons con- 
tained in ancient drugged wines, we do know the 
i produced upon that delicate organ by alcohol, 
the poison contained in fermented wine; for it has 
been made apparent from post mortem examinations. 
"Alcohol used frequently and in considerable quan- 
tities causes inflammation of this delicate organ, 
which is generally of the chronic kind." This disease 
is insidious in its character and slow in its effects, 
but it invariably advances while the noxious cause is 
continually applied, until great induration, schirrous, 
and sometimes cancers and ulcers, are the deplorable 
consequences. 

The pyloric and cardiac orifices become occasionally 
indurated and contracted, and when this is the case, 
death soon puts an end to the tantalizing suffering 
of the wretched victim. 

But not from post mortem examinations alone are 
the effects of alcohol upon the human stomach made 
apparent. 

By a singular providence, ocular demonstration 
of these effects, while in progress, has been furnished. 

A young Canadian, St. Martin by name, w T as 
wounded by a cannon ball, which in its passage 
opened an orifice in his stomach, which, though the 
wound was healed, was never closed. 



174 EXPERIMENTS UPON ST. MARTIN. 

Hence it became necessary, in order to prevent the 
escape of food, to cover that orifice by a pad. 

Dr. Beaumont, the army surgeon, who effected 
the cure, being impressed with a sense of the import- 
ance of the opportunity thus furnished for investi- 
gating the progress of digestion, received the young 
man into his family 5 and instituted a series of experi- 
ments, which were continued two or three years. 

During these experiments he found, that whenever 
St. Martin drank fermented liquor, " the mucus 
membrane of the stomach was covered with inflam- 
matory and ulcerous patches, the secretions were 
vitiated, and the gastric juice diminished in quantity, 
and of an unnatural vicidity, and yet he described 
himself as perfectly well, and complained of nothing. 

" Two days subsequent to this, the inner membrane 
of the stomach was usually morbid, the inflam- 
matory appearance more extensive, the spots more 
livid than usual : from the surface of some of them 
exuded small drops of grumous blood : the ulcerous 
patches were larger and more numerous ; the mucus 
covering thicker than usual, and the gastric secretions 
much more vitiated. The gastric fluids extracted 
were mixed with a large proportion of thick ropy 
mucus, and a considerable mucopurulent discharge, 
slightly tinged with blood, resembling discharges 
from the bowels in some cases of dysentery. Not- 
withstanding this diseased appearace of the stomach, 
no very essential aberration of its functions was 
manifested. St. Martin complained of no symptoms 
indicating any general derangement of the system, 



PAUL RECOMMENDED WINE MEDICINALLY. 175 

except an uneasy sensation and tenderness at the pit 
of the stomach, and some vertigo with dimness and 
yellowness of vision on stooping down and rising 
up again." Dr. Beaumont further observed, that 
u the free use of ardent spirits, wine, beer, or any 
other intoxicating liquor, when continued for some 
days, has invariably produced these changes." 

Now whatever may have been the other infirmities 
In question, is it probable that Paul recommended 
even a little of that kind of wine which produced 
such effects on the stomach, to be drunk by his 
young friend Timothy for his " stomach's sake?" 
Especially, is this probable, when there existed at 
the time other kinds of wine known to be harmless 
not only, but medicinal also ; nay, even adapted 
especially to disordered or diseased stomachs ? 

If any, in view of so many probabilities to the 
contrary, shall, notwithstanding, be of this opinion, 
they will, it is to be hoped, since the question cannot 
be authoritatively and infallibly settled, admit that it 
is not altogether without color of reason, that the 
advocates of total abstinence from all that can intoxi- 
cate differ from them in opinion. But though the 
probability w r ere much greater than it is believed to 
be, that the wine recommended by Paul to Timothy 
was intoxicating w T ine, still it would be obvious to 
remark, that it was recommended medicinally, and 
has therefore no bearing on the use of wine in health 
and as a common beverage. And it is also obvious 
to remark, that be the kind of wine in question what 
it may, up to the time this recommendation was 

NoTT. 



176 HABITS OF PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS. 

given, Timothy was, in the fullest sense, a cold water 
drinker ; and that an apostolic recommendation was 
necessary to induce him to take even a little wine, 
and that medicinalty ; and judge ye, what must have 
been the state of society, and the conviction of duty 
among Christians, at a time when such a license was 
requisite for such a purpose. 

With all that tendency to ultraism said to prevail 
at present, it may be doubted whether evangelists 
might not even now be found who, though in health, 
would require no such license for such a liberty ; and 
it may also be doubted, whether a mighty change 
does not yet remain to be effected in our manners, 
before our abstinence will equal the abstinence of 
primitive Christians, or come within those limits 
which the Bible prescribes. 

Speaking of the exemplary and self-denying habits 
of those Christians, says Minutius Felix : " Our feasts 
are not only chaste but sober ; we indulge not our- 
selves in banquets, nor make our feasts with wine, 
but temper our cheerfulness with gravity and serious- 
ness." With these primitive habits, how will the 
habits of modern Christians compare ? To say nothing 
of public festivals, how is it at ordinary meals and 
among those select and exemplary persons called by 
way of eminence, temperate drinkers? Alas ! that it 
should be so, but so it is, among such temperate 
drinkers, wines, even intoxicating wines, are drank 
habitually and freely and without dilution ; a license 
this, which, among the more moral Pagans, was 
formerly deemed disreputable. The Greeks regard 



CUSTOMS AMONG THE GREEKS. 177 

undiluted wine as the symbol of drunkenness, and 
as constituting the boundary between the sober and 
moral and the dissolute and drunken. 

Laws were enacted, as we have shown, disallow- 
ing wine not mixed with water to be drank even at 
festivals. 

Young men below thirty, and women all their 
lives, were forbidden to drink intoxicating wine at 
all as a common beverage. 

And wine among the Romans, when drank on 
ordinary occasions, and by men of character, was 
always diluted w T ith water.* 

Whereas among us, wine, intoxicating wine, even 
brandied wine, is drank, and drank unmixed, as a 
common beverage, by men, women and children ; 
and drank, too, without reproach, without scruple, 
and perhaps even occasionally on principle and for 
conscience sake. 

It is impossible to have glanced, even as we have 
done in passing, at the opinions and practices of 
primitive times, without being struck with our man- 
ifest departure from that reserve and caution once 
observed in the use of liquors, the product even of 
the vineyard and the wine press. 

* Potter's Antiquities. * 

m 



LECTUKE No. VI. 



THINGS, NOT NAMES. 

How wines called by the same name can be distinguished — Absti- 
nence from wine urged on the ground of expediency. 

If in primitive times, as has been attempted to be 
shown, distinct kinds of wine actually existed, some 
of which were pure, healthful, and a fit emblem of 
mercy ; and some of which were impure, deleterious, 
and a fit emblem of wrath, it might naturally be 
expected, it is said, that products and preparations 
so distinct in their nature and opposite in their 
effects, would invariably have been designated by 
terms equally distinct ; and some of the advocates 
of total abstinence may have unadvisedly assumed 
that such was actually the case. 

I say unadvisedly, for though such an assumption 
would be verified by an appeal to the sacred text, in 
many cases, as we have shown, still it would not be 
uniformly and universally so, verified, and the dis- 
covery that it would not, has by the opponents of 
total abstinence been hailed as a signal and decisive 
triumph. 



NO CONFUSION OF THINGS. 179 

With how much reason it has been so hailed, will, 
by an attention to things, in place of names, ulti- 
mately become apparent. 

For however numerous and various and inter- 
changeable the terms may be, which are used to de- 
note those different kinds of vinous preparations of 
which the Bible speaks, all of which terms in our 
translation are rendered wine, the broad and notorious 
fact, that a marked and mighty difference existed be- 
tween the different kinds of such preparations, is not 
a whit the less undeniable on that account. 

Be the confusion of terms then what it may, there 
is no confusion of things ; different kinds of wine 
actually existed, and are known to have existed, some 
of which were intoxicating, and some of which were 
not intoxicating. 

The one kind usually safe and salutary, the other 
always dangerous, often hurtful, and sometimes even 
deadly. 

By calling both by the same name, though they 
were uniformly so called, which they are not, would 
not alter the nature of either. * 



* See the analysis of Scripture texts in Lecture Third, from which 
it will appear, that though yayin in Hebrew, like wine in English, is 
used for vinous beverage of every kind, iirosh is uniformly used for the 
unfermented fruit of the vine, as it exists in the cluster or on the vine 
or in the vat, and never for the fermented fruit of the vine as it exists 
in the cask ; and that auds is used for the droppings of the juice from 
the cluster, or newly expressed in the vat, as sobhe seems to be for the 
same when inspissated, so that it is not the fact that in Hebrew no dis- 
tinction is made between the different kinds of vinous beverage called 
wine in English. (See Appendix^ A.) 

Nott. 



lS r O NOT DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH. 

But if both kinds of wine are called by the same 
name, how can the two be distinguished? How? 
As other dissimilar things are distinguished by their 
distinctive attributes and effects. 

When the fruit of the -vine is spoken of at one 
time as the symbol of mercy, ar^ at another time as 
the symbol of wrath, even though the same terms 
were used in both cases, would it follow that they 
were used in both in the same sense, and that in both 
the same kind of wine w r as in the contemplation of 
the prophet ? 

There is a kind of vinous preparation, pure, bland, 
cheering, a fit emblem of mercy ; and there is also 
another kind of vinous preparation, impure, deleteri- 
ous, demoralizing, maddening, a fit emblem of wrath* 

And whatever may be the similarity, or even iden- 
tity of terms employed in referring to these distinct 
kinds of preparation as emblems, who w r ould be at a 
loss to divine w T hich of these two kinds of prepara- 
tion was referred to as an emblem of mercy, and 
which as an emblem of wrath ? 

If " teetotalers " cannot in all cases prove by ver- 
bal criticism, when w T ine is spoken of in terms of 
commendation, that unintoxicating wine is meant, 
because the terms employed are common to both 
intoxicating and unintoxicating wines, their oppo- 
nents, be it remembered, cannot, for the same rea- 
son, prove the contrary. 

What the truth is, however, is not the less disco- 
verable on that account. For the real question at 
issue is not a question of words, but of facts. 



ILLUSTRATION BY ANALOGY. 181 

Whether distinct kinds of vinous preparations, the 
one intoxicating and the other not, actually existed 
in the Holy Land, and whether the Bible recognizes 
their existence, and not whether they are always 
designated by different names, is what concerns us to 
know. 

And the fact that such distinct kinds of wine did 
exist, the one intoxicating and the other not, and that 
the Bible does recognize their existence, are facts, 
and facts which denial cannot alter. 

More than this the friends of total abstinence from 
all that intoxicates may not claim, and more than this 
the cause of total abstinence does not require. ; 

Let us attempt an illustration by analogy. 

What we call bread may either be made of the 
flour of wheat, of rye, of corn, of barley, of oats — 
or it may be made of the starch of the potato, or of 
various other farinaceous vegetables ; it may be made 
even of bran, even of spurred rye, than which few 
poisons are more destructive to the health or fatal to 
the life of man. Moreover, the same may be fer- 
mented or unfermentecl — -debased by the mixture of 
innutritions ingredients, and even of the most deadly 
poisons ; but however made, or of whatever made, 
it is still called bread. 

But because it is so called, are we to believe, w r hen 
bread is spoken of in terms of commendation, that 
among all the kinds of bread which exist, the 
very vilest of them all is had in contemplation ; or 
because the use of bread is sanctioned in the Bible, 
sanctioned habitually, sanctioned even at the com- 



1S2 MIXED WINES, 

munion table, are we to believe that the use of that 
sort of bread which is known to be destructive of 
health, and even of life, is therefore sanctioned? 

And that although it might be well to partake 
sparingly of this bread of disease and death, still to 
abstain from its use altogether, since the use of bread 
is authorized by the Bible, would be both ultra and 
fanatical? 

Who does not know that mixed vinous beverages 
are sometimes spoken of in the Bible, in terms of 
commendation, and at other times in terms of con- 
demnation ? And who does not also know that a 
corresponding difference existed in the mixtures 
themselves ? 

Some being mixed with pure water or healthful 
medicaments, and some with deleterious drugs — the 
former by wisdom for her abstemious votaries, the 
latter by folly for her licentious guests. 

And who, knowing this will believe that because 
both preparations are called mixed wine-s, it cannot, 
therefore, be known, when these terms occur, which 
mixture is meant? And because it cannot, that all 
the commendations of "mixed wines" contained in 
the Bible may be legitimately claimed for those stupe- 
fying or maddening mixtures, prepared for idolators 
in their worship, for convicts at their executions, or 
even for the guests of harlots in their adulterous 
chambers ? 

Be the identity of the terms employed what it 
may, the distinctness of the mixtures indicated by 



WHICH IS THE BEST WINE. 183 

their use, is not a whit the less real or intelligible on 
that account. 

The same may be said, and with equal truth, of 
wimixed vinous beverages. 

The good and the bad stand out in contrast on the 
sacred page 5 and not the less distinguishable because 
both are sometimes designated by one common name, 
each kind being made apparent, notwithstanding 
this identity of name, by the manner of its use, the 
effects produced, or by the terms of praise or dispraise 
joined in the context. 

Since then there existed, and was known by the 
sacred writers to have existed in Palestine, different 
kinds of wine, distinct in their nature and opposite 
in their effects ; the one safe and salutary, the other 
dangerous and sometimes deadly — -the one the pure 
juice of the grape — the other the juice of the grape 
after having become deleterious, by a change wrought 
therein by continued fermentation or by drugging ; 
since these two kinds of wine existed, and were 
known to exist, will it be pretended, when wine is 
spoken of, at one time as an emblem of mercy and 
at another as an emblem of wrath — that it cannot 
in either case be known which kind of wine was in 
the contemplation of the speaker? And if so, why ? 

Is it because it cannot be known w 7 hich kind of 
wine, the good or the bad, is the fitter emblem of 
mercy, and which of wrath ? or whether the bad and 
the good are not each equally fitted to become an 
emblem of either ? 



1S4 THE CONNECTION INDICATES IT. 

When Moses speaks of a wine that dishonored 
Noah, that polluted Lot — a wine that is the poison 
of dragons, and the cruel venom of asps — when 
Isaiah speaks of a wine that causes priests and even 
prophets to err in vision and stumble in judgment, 
so that it could be said in reference to its effects: 
"All tables are full of vomit and filthiness, and there 
is no place clean" — when Solomon speaks of a wine 
that is a mocker, that biteth like a serpent and 
stingeth like an adder — that causeth wounds and 
sorrow, and may not even be looked upon — when 
Asaph speaks of a wine of retribution, poured from 
a cup in the hand of God, the dregs whereof are to 
be wrung out and drank by the wicked ; is it to be 
believed that the wine in question is the same kind 
of wine as that which wisdom mingles ; to which 
wisdom invites — a wine fitly joined with bread and 
oil, and milk and honey, a wine that not only sus- 
tains the life but makes glad the heart of man? Is 
this to be believed, and believed in the face of so 
much evidence to the contrary, because vinous pre- 
parations, however distinct in their nature and oppo- 
site in their effects, are designated by the same name 
in the English Bible, and often even in the Greek 
and Hebrew ? 

But do not the very terms of the text alluded to, 
" And w T ine that maketh glad the heart of man," do 
not these terms show that the wine in the contem- 
plation of the Psalmist was inebriating wine? Not 
in the judgment of "teetotalers," and why should they 
be thought to do this in the judgment of other men ? 



WINES DISTINCT IN THEIR EFFECTS. 185 

Is it because no joy ever arises in the bosom of 
the pious vine dresser, when, weary and exhausted, 
lie reclines beneath the shadow of his vine, breathes 
the peculiar fragrance of its opening blossom, tastes 
the rich flavor of its ripened fruits, or allays his burn- 
ing thirst with the delicious and refreshing beverage 
pressed fresh from its overhanging clusters ? 

Although the sensualist, insensible to the gratitude 
that ought to be called forth by these bounties of 
Providence, can perceive no gladness that could have 
been excited in the bosom of the Israelite by the 
contemplation of the vine, except that which springs 
from the intoxicating poison which its fermented 
juice contains, still there are those who can, and it 
is quite possible that the Psalmist did. 

The wine commended by David was wine that 
causes joy and gladness; that is associated with oil 
that causes man's face to shine, and bread that 
strengthened man's heart. Whereas the wine con- 
demned by Solomon was wine that causes " w t o and 
sorrow," is -associated with " redness of eyes and 
wounds without cause." 

With what color of reason are wines producing 
such opposite effects believed to be one and the 
same article ? 

And yet for the latter intoxicating, dementing, soul 
destroying beverage, are claimed all the commenda- 
tions of wine contained in the Bible, as confidently 
and exclusively as if it were the only beverage that 
the vine produced, or that God when speaking of 
the vine regarded ; as confidently and exclusively as 



186 SCRIPTURE COMMENDATIONS INTELLIGIBLE, 

if the vine dresser derived no joys from breathing 
the fragrance, or reclining beneath the shadow of his 
vine; as if the clusters that hung from its richly 
laden branches neither served to allay his hunger or 
quench his thirst; in one word, as confidently as if 
the eye of the prophet, as he delivered his eulogium, 
overlooking so many benefits and blessings, were 
like the eye of the wine bibber, fixed only on the 
treacherous, maddening contents of the intoxicating 
chalice. 

And yet, had the process producing intoxicating 
wine never been discovered, not a drop of intoxica- 
cating wine produced, the commendations of the 
vine contained in the Bible would not have been a 
whit the less intelligible or pertinent or proper on 
that account. 

And were that discovery lost, the fact of its exist- 
ence forgotten, and the very law of God, by which 
it is produced, obliterated from the book of nature, 
no obliterations would in consequence be required 
from the book of revelation, except only the oblitera- 
tions of the cautions therein contained in relation to 
the juice of the grape, in form of intoxicating wine ; 
and except, also, the recorded condemnation of that 
drunkenness that springs from the use of such 
wine. 

All else that had been written, and written in 
commendation of the grape and the vine, and the 
vineyard and the wine press, might remain un- 
touched, and would not, I repeat it, be a whit the 
less intelligible or pertinent or proper than before. 



DR. DUFF. 187 

That the voluntary transformation of the fruit of 
the vine or orchard, or the barley field, into intoxi- 
cating liquor by continuous fermentation is a profa- 
nation, I will not affirm ; nor will I affirm that the 
article so produced in certain cases may not be useful 
and used with innocence — but I will affirm that for 
the wine bibber to claim for intoxicating wine the 
exclusive commendations pronounced by Moses and 
the Prophets in favor of the vine and the vineyards of 
the Holy Land, is as absurd as it would be for the 
cider drinker to claim in like manner for cider, the 
commendation of the apple tree by Solomon, or the 
beer drinker for beer, the commendation of barley 
by Jeremiah, or even the whiskey drinker for whis- 
key, those beautiful allusions of the Saviour himself, 
to the husbandman, the harvest field and the reapers.* 



* Says the Rev. Dr. Duff, u In these countries mantled with vine- 
yards, one cannot help learning the true intent and use of the vine in 
the scheme of Providence. In our own land wine has become so ex- 
clusively a mere luxury, or what is worse, by a species of manufacture, 
an intoxicating beverage, that many have wondered how the Bible 
speaks of wine, in conjunction with corn, and other such supports of 
animal life. Now, in passing through the region of vineyards in the 
east of France, one must at once perceive that the vine greatly 
nourishes on slopes and heights, where the soil is too poor and gravelly 
to maintain either corn for food or pasture for cattle. But what is the 
providential design in rendering this soil — favored by a genial atmos- 
phere — ■ so productive of the vine, if its fruits become solely either an 
article of luxury or an instrument of vice? The answer is, that Prov- 
idence had no such design. Look at the peasant and his meals in vine 
bearing districts. Instead of milk, he has a basin of pure unadultera- 
ted ' blood of the grape.' In this, its native, original state, it is a plain, 

Nott. 



18S CASE HERE DIFFERENT TO THAT OF ANCIENTS. 

As healthful, sober, as well as deleterious intoxi- 
cating wines existed, and as the same terms are fre- 
quently applied indiscriminately to both, it is not 
and cannot be shown to be certain that deleterious 
intoxicating wine is even spoken of with approbation 
throughout the entire Bible. 

But though it w^ere otherwise, though the com- 
mendations of the vine in the Bible were merely 
commendations of intoxicating wine — and though it 
were admitted that the habitual use of such wine as 
a beverage were both safe and salutary in Palestine, 
it would not follow that such use of it would be either 
safe or salutary here. # 



simple and wholesome liquid ; which, at every repast, becomes to the 
husbandman what milk is to the shepherd — not a luxury but a neces- 
sary — not an intoxicating, but a nutritive beverage. Hence, to the 
vine dressing peasant of Auxerre, for example, an abundant vintage, 
as connected with his own immediate sustenance, is as important as an 
overflowing dairy to the pastoral peasant of Ayrshire. And hence, by 
such a view of the subject, are the language and the sense of the 
Scripture vindicated from the very appearance of favoring what is mere- 
ly luxurious or positively noxious, when it so constantly magnifies a well 
replenished wine press, in a rooky, mountainous country, like that of 
Palestine, as one of the richest bounties of a generous Providence." 

* Intoxicating wine here is not what it was in Palestine. Even 
Palm wine, the strong drink of Scripture, contained but very little 
alcohol. 

The strongest native wine which the mere fruit of the vine produces, 
contains only about one-third of the alcoholic poisons contained in the 
stronger and more favorite alcoholic wines here in use. 

In view of this fact, would it follow that because it was Scriptural 
to drink the alcoholic wines of Palestine, that it was also Scrip x >ral 
to drink our intoxicating wines, in which so much intenser p Jma 



CORRUPTION BY DISTILLED LIQUORS. 189 

Here the use of wine, by moderate drinkers, creates 
the taste and prepares the way for the use of brandy, 
and, among reclaimed inebriates, reestablishes the 
taste and reopens the way for a return to it again. 

We are no longer what we once were, distinguished 
for sobriety. 

In this one respect at least we have changed for the 
worse our social character, all classes of community-, 
having, previous to the late attempt at reformation, 
acquired the taste and become accustomed to the use, 
in some of its forms, of alcoholic stimulants ; so that, 
not without reason, a distinguished statesman not 
long since said that we w r ere in danger of becoming 
a nation of drunkards — and it is well if this be not 
even still the case. 

Long familiarized to the use of distilled liquors, 
and corrupted by that use, we cannot (however 
others might) safely indulge in the use of mere fer- 
mented liquors ; so that could we obtain the fermented 
wanes of Spain, France, Italy, or even of the Holy 
Land, no matter in what purity or abundance, with 
our present love of rum, gin, brandy, and even 



are contained? And even though this absurdity would follow, the 
argument in favor of the use of wine by us, under existing circum- 
stances, would still be inconclusive. We live in a different age. Our 
climate, our constitution, our habits, are different from those of the 
ancient dwellers in the Holy Land. 

And besides, since the canon of scripture was completed, distillation 
has been invented, or at least, introduced into Europe. Hence, we 
have come into the possession of vastly intenser stimulants than the 
strongest wines in the Holy Land furnished. 



190 QUESTIONS PUT. 

whiskey, and our facilities for procuring them, even 
such wines and in such abundance, it is believed, 
would not prove a blessing but a curse; so that with 
our propensities and habits, the only alternative is 
abstinence or ruin. 

I am aware that " teetotalism," as it is called, is 
smiled at by some as a weakness, ridiculed by others 
as a folly, and by others censured as a crime ; and I 
am also aware that there is nothing imposing or 
exclusive in the. use of water, that common beverage 
furnished by God himself in such abundance for the 
convenience and comfort of man ; and that he who 
uses no other beverage, must remain a stranger to 
that transient and fitful joy, that alternates with a 
corresponding sorrow in the bosoms of those who 
indulge in the more fashionable use of intoxicating 
liquors. Still, in the view of that withered intellect, 
those blighted hopes, those unnatural crimes, and 
that undying misery, that the use of these liquors 
everywhere occasions, I put it to the candor of every 
ingenious man who hears me, even among those who 
still indulge in that use, whether we who have abjured 
it, have not, under the existing state of things, a very 
intelligible and weighty reason for our conduct ? 

Will not the thought, as you return to your homes 
to-night and sit down amid a virtuous and beloved 
family, but a family familiarized to the use of intoxi 
eating liquors in some of those forms which fashion 
sanctions — will not the thought that those same 
liquors, to the temperate use of which you are 
accustomed in your household, must be to them the 



WHY RELINQUISH ABUSED COMFORTS? 191 

occasion of so much peril ; perhaps of so much 
suffering ; suffering in which, though they escape, so 
many other human beings must participate ; — will 
not the thought of this mar the pleasure to be derived 
from that cup which is to be hereafter, as it has here- 
tofore been to multitudes who drank of it, the cup 
of death ? 

Will not the thought of those uncounted thousands 
who have lived and died accursed on this planet, in 
consequence of intoxicating liquors ; and those other 
and yet other thousands who will hereafter so live 
and die upon it, as long as the use of such liquors 
shall continue to be tolerated ; and will not the 
thought of this wanton, gratuitous and unmeasured 
misery abate somewhat the displeasure you have 
felt, and soften the severity of the censures in which 
you have indulged against those who have combined 
to banish the use of those liquors as a beverage from 
the earth ? More than this, will it not induce you,, 
after all, to cooperate with us in consummating so 
humane and benevolent an enterprise? 

Not now to question the healthfullness of the wines 
of Palestine and of other grape bearing countries, 
when obtained in purity and used in moderation ; 
not now to question your ability so to obtain such 
wines, or j^our disposition so to use them when 
obtained ; still, considering what multitudes there are 
who cannot so obtain those wines, and who would 
not so use them if they could ; considering the taste 
that has already been created by other and stronger 
stimulants ; considering the impossibility of correcting 



192 LIMITS TO THE LAW OF LOVE. 

that taste and of reclaiming the drunken, or of 
preventing the drinker from hereafter becoming 
drunken, while custom everywhere pampers appetite, 
and fashion on every side invites her guests, her 
deluded guests, to partake of other banquets than 
those of wine : considering these things, is there 
not a cause for questioning the' wisdom of existing 
habits, and making one great united effort to effect a 
change ? 

But why should w T e relinquish comforts because 
others abuse them ? Why ? Because it is great, 
and good, and God-like to do so. Needs it to be told 
in this assembly who it was that being rich, became 
poor for the sake of others, even for our sakes? 
Since the Son of God has visited the earth on an 
errand of mercy, reason, conscience, religion, sanc- 
tion self-denials, especially among that race he came 
to save, and on that planet where he submitted to 
his privations, endured his sufferings and planted his 
cross. 

True, there are limits to this law of love. But 
the sacrifice in question comes within those limits. 
So Paul thought. Though an inhabitant of Palestine, 
the land of vines and vineyards, he deemed it not 
only admissible, but also "good neither to drink tmne, 
nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended 
or is made weak." 

Do you inquire, Who is my brother ? So inquired 
a lawyer, " Who is my neighbor?" You remember 
that beautiful and touching narrative in which the 
;ii-\vlt was conveyed; you remember the hapless 



i; 



ABSTINENCE REQUIRED FOR EXAMPLE. 193 

Jew who fell among thieves; you remember the 
unfeeling priest and Levite who having stood and 
looked upon the sufferer, passed by on the other side, 
and left a countryman to perish ; you remember the 
good Samaritan who flew to a stranger's and alien's 
rescue ; and you remember too who it was that said, 
"Gro thou and do likewise." 

! it is not to the narrow circle of kindred and 
of caste that the charities of man's common brother- 
hood are confined. The men around you are your 
brethren — bone of your bone and flesh of your flesh. 
God hath not only made of one blood all nations to 
dwell upon the earth, but he hath also bound together 
by ties of reciprocal dependence the different classes 
of the men which compose those nations. 

It is for you, ye rich men who live in affluence and 
ease, it is for you, that the husbandman toils and 
sweats by day, and the shepherd wakes and watches 
by night. 

You owe the raiment you wear, the dwelling you 
inhabit, the furniture you use — you owe the sofa on 
which you recline, the carriages in which you ride — 
the steam car that conveys you by land, and the 
steamboat by sea, with so much dispatch and ease in 
your excursions of pleasure and business, to the skill 
and industry of the artificer; while that sailor boy 
that climbs the mast, that breasts the storm and 
perils his life 'upon the ocean, does this to furnish for 
your possession and enjoyment the comforts and the 
luxuries of other and distant countries. 



194 APOLOGIES FOR THE POOR DRUNKARD. 

But for these men, the men who conduct the agri- 
culture, and the manufacture, and the commerce of 
the world ; but for these men, you and yours must 
perish ; or putting off your ornaments and relinquish- 
ing your life of ease, you must betake yourselves to 
the practice of those self-denials and the endurance 
of those hardships which these men in your behalf 
now practice and endure. 

It is in behalf of these men, the sufferers of so 
many privations, and at the same time the producers 
of so many comforts; it is in behalf of these men, 
to whose wearisome days and sleepless nights you 
are so much indebted, it is in behalf of these men 
that we wish to apply the apostolic maxim : " It is 
good not to drink wine or any thing whereby thy 
brother stumbleth, or is offended or is made weak." 

You have, as you affirm, the self-command to avoid 
excess. Be it so. Still they by whose industry you 
subsist, have not. You have the knowledge to dis- 
tinguish the pure from the adulterated. They have 
not ; and even if they had, they want the ability to 
profit by that knowledge. So long, therefore, as you 
continue the use of the former, they will remain the 
victims of the latter. 

It is not in man to be insensible to the influence 
of fashion, or to set at naught the power of example. 
If you cannot forego the exhilaration of wine, you, 
living at ease and surrounded by comforts, how 
should it be expected that they should forego the 
exhilaration of whiskey, they, exhausted by fatigue 
and exaspirated by privations? 



EXHORTATION. 195 

Know you not that the poor drunken clay laborer, 
standing with his tin cup and rum jug in his hand, 
finds an apology for his conduct in the demijohn and 
wine glass of his rich and moderate drinking employer; 
and that from those who lack fortitude and self-denial 
to abandon the one, exhortations come with an ill 
grace for the abandonment of the other ? 

And yet the other must be abandoned, or the 
mother continue 'to mourn, the wife and the widow 
to suffer, and the orphan to supplicate. 

Nay, the poor-house, the prison-house, the house 
of silence, and even the hell that lies beyond it, must 
continue hereafter, as heretofore, to be supplied 
gratuitously, prematurely, and in numbers ; numbers 
who might otherwise have Jived for usefulness on the 
earth, and honor and immortality in heaven ; Oh ! 
for their sakes, if not for your own, we urge — we 
entreat you to lend to this enterprise the countenance 
of your example; especially for the sake of those 
who have already fallen, or who are about to fall. 

Christians, patriots, men of humanity ! will you 
not come along with us to their rescue, who, mis- 
guided by the example and emboldened by the coun- 
sel of others, have ventured onward in a course 
which threatens to prove fatal alike to their health, 
their happiness and their salvation ? 

Will you not, in place of casting additional im- 
pediments in the way of their return, contribute to 
remove those which already exist, and which, with- 
out such assistance, they will remain forever alike 
unable to surmount or remove ? 



196 PREVAILING USAGES. 

On your part the sacrifice will be small, on theirs 
the benefit conferred immense ; a sacrifice not indeed 
without requital ; for you shall share the joy of their 
rejoicing friends on earth, and their rejoicing friends 
in Heaven, who, when celebrating their returns to 
God, shall say; "This, our son, our brother, our 
neighbor, was lost and is found, was dead and is 
alive again." 

You see, Christians, that although you lived in. 
Canaan, and in the vicinity of the Cana of Calilee 
where water was changed into wine, you would not 
be authorized to use wine as we now use it, and 
that you would not be required even to use it at all ; 
that they were not saints, but men who forgot God, 
concerning whom it is recorded " that the viol and 
the tabret, and the harp and wine is in their feasts," 
and that its use as a beverage is nowhere commanded; 
that large classes of men, and men approved of God, 
abstained wholly from its use ; and that it is not only 
lawful, but befitting for Christians always so to 
abstain, when the circumstances of those around 
them call for such abstinence. i 

This you see, and seeing this, I ask what, under 
present circumstances, is your duty ? 

In view of the prevailing usages of society in 
which you live, and the obvious inroads drunkenness 
is making on that society ; in view of that frightful 
number of ministers at the altar and advocates at the 
bar, whom drunkenness, robbing the church and the 
world of their services, has demented and dishonored ; 
in view of those master spirits in the field and the 



WOULD PAUL SO IIAVE USED IT? 197 

Senate chamber, whom drunkenness has mastered ; 
in view of those families made wretched, those 
youth corrupted, and those poor-houses and prison- 
houses and graveyards peopled — and peopled with 
beings made guilty and wretched by drunkenness ; I 
put it to your conscience, Christians, whether at such 
a time and under such circumstances you would 
be at liberty, though supplied with wine made 
from the grapes of Eshcol, to use it as a beverage ? ■ 

At such a time and under such circumstances* 
would Paul so have used it? 

Would Timothy, or any other of those suffering 
and self-denying men, sent forth to reform the man- 
ners of the age in which they lived, and teach man- 
kind the way of salvation ; would these men, or 
either of them, were an effort making — no matter by 
whom, or with what want of insinuation of address 
or suavity of manner — to stem the torrent of licen- 
tiousness, to change the current of public opinion, 
and purify the church and the world from drunken- 
ness, would these men, in such a state of things, 
array themselves on the side of the many who drank, 
and against the few w T ho abstained from drinking ? 
Would they hesitate, and waver, and finally draw 
back and refuse to cooperate ? Above all, would 
they lend their influence to weaken the resolution of 
the wavering, to reassure the faltering courage of 
the drinker, and to relieve the conscience of the 
drunkard by drinking themselves — moderately, I 
admit, but still by drinking and by declaiming 
against the fanaticism of all who refuse to drink ? 



198 THE POSITION TO BE CHOSEN. 

I know not how others might, but I do not believe 
that Apostles or Apostolic men would act thus ; and 
I dare not, therefore, act thus myself. 

If, between the ultraism of relinquishing the use 
of even wine, and the ultraism of continuing to use 
it under existing circumstances, I am called to 
choose, it behooves me to make the choice of safety, 
not of danger. 

And it seems to me that if I knew the day of 
judgment were at hand, as the day of death is, and 
were that day to come suddenly, as the day of death 
may come, I should prefer that my judge should find 
me standing and acting with a few fanatics, among 
whom no drunkards, already declared to be excluded 
from the kingdom of God, could be found, than with 
that multitude among whom, though no fanatics, 
many drunkards might be numbered; and many 
others, who, though not now drunkards, were pursu- 
ing the way to become so thereafter. 

It was not concerning him who drank with the 
drunken, but concerning him who watched, that it 
was said : " Blessed is the servant, who when his 
Lord cometh, he shall find so doing." 

In conclusion, I do not ask, Christians, whether you 
are, or propose to become members of a temperance 
society ; or whether you have taken, or propose to 
take, the old, or the new, or the still newer pledge ; 
but I do ask, whether you are not bound, by the 
very circumstances inw T hich God has placed you, to 
refrain from the use of intoxicating liquors, of every 
name and nature, as a beverage, and whether you 



CONCLUSION. 199 

cau, without sin, refuse to give your influence, your 
whole influence, to the cause of total abstinence? 

Be it so, that this cause has advocates who are 
neither courteous nor conciliating, that their measures 
are often ill-chosen, and their spirit fanatical ; still it 
is to be remembered, that to adopt ill-advised 
measures, is not peculiar to the advocates of total 
abstinence, and that whatever of fanaticism there 
may be in this advocacy, it is all in a safe direction; 
and for a long time to come, the interests of virtue 
and religion will have much less to fear from restraint 
than from indulgence ; and besides if devils be cast 
out, even by some who follow not with us, it were 
wiser to encourage than forbid them. 

Paul rejoiced when Christ was preached, though 
preached out of envy, and in the hope of adding 
affliction to his bonds. So w r e, without any sacrifice 
of principle, may rejoice when temperance is advo- 
cated, though advocated by disguised enemies or 
misguided friends; and though advocated in no better 
spirit, or for no higher end than was apparent in 
those invidious preachers of whom the Apostle spoke. 

NOTT. 



LECTURE No. VII. 



A DUL TEE AT IONS. 

The adulteration of the wines of commerce — Drunkenness and glut- 
tony compared — Analogy between bad oil, bad milk, and bad 
wine — An appeal to Patriots and to Christians. 

In the preceding lectures we have seen that distinct 
kinds of vinous beverages existed in the Holy Land ; 
the one a good, nutritious, sober beverage ; the other 
a bad, innutritions, intoxicating beverage ; the one 
conducive to health and virtue, the other to disease 
and crime ; the one suited in its nature to the tempe- 
rate festivals of Christians, the other to the drunken 
revels of Pagans — and both usually called by the 
same name in our translation of the Bible, and often 
in the original itself — that if in consequence of this, 
the advocates of total abstinence can not prove by 
verbal criticism, when wine is commended, that un- 
intoxicating wine is meant ; so neither, for the same 
reason, can their opponents prove the contrary — that 
uninspired men deemed sober, moral, unintoxicat- 
ing wine the best, and that the presumption is, that 
inspired men were of the same opinion ; a presump- 
tion strengthened by the fact that such wine is usually 
spoken of with commendation — that though it were 



OTAL ABSTINENCE MOST IMPERIOUS HERE. 201 

otherwise, though the Bible sanctioned the intoxica- 
ting wines of Palestine, it would not follow that it 
sanctions our own still more intoxicating wines. 

Or, though even this absurdity would follow, that 
still the argument in favor of wine drinking among 
ourselves would be inconclusive — that, be the kind 
of wine, the use of which the Bible sanctioned, what 
it may, and even though it were conceded, for argu- 
ment sake, to be intoxicating — still that its use was 
not commanded, or commended as a common beve- 
rage ; the multitudes who feared God and worked 
righteousness, never used it ; and that circumstances 
were liable to occur, even in Palestine, that would 
render its use improper, and make total abstinence 
even there a duty ; that here the use of such wine, 
supposing it to be intoxicating, would be less admis- 
sible and more perilous, because here its effects would 
be liable to be aggravated by the action of other and 
intenser stimulants ; which stimulants are every- 
where accessible, and for which a national taste has 
been already formed — so that, were the wines in use 
among us as pure as the wines of Spain, France, 
Italy, or even the Holy Land, under existing circum- 
stances, total abstinence would be an imperious duty, 
as it would have been in Palestine, if then and there, 
as now and here, it had caused a brother to stumble, 
to offend, or to become weak. 

How much more imperious must that duty be felt 
to be, when it is considered that generally and truly 
speaking, we have no such article as even intoxicating 
wine, in the Bible sense of wine, in use among us. 



202 ADULTERATION OF WINE. 

Wine indeed, falsely so called, we have, and in 
abundance $ but names, as.we have elsewhere said, 
do not alter the nature of things. 

The extract of logwood is not the less the extract 
of logwood, nor is the sugar of lead the less the 
sugar of lead, because combined with New England 
rum, western whiskey, sour beer, or even Newark 
cider, put up in wine casks, stamped Port, Cham- 
paigne, or Maderia, and sold under the imposing 
sanction of the collector's purchased certificate, 
passed from hand to hand, and perhaps transmitted 
from father to son, to give the color of honesty to 
cool, calculating, heartless imposition. 

O ! it was not from the vineyards of any distant 
grape-bearing country, that those disguised poisons, 
sent abroad to corrupt and curse the country, were 
derived. On the contrary, the ingredients of which 
they are composed were collected and mingled, and 
their color and flavor imparted, in some of those 
garrets above, or caverns beneath, the observation of 
men ; caverns fitly called hells, where, in our larger 
cities, fraud undisguised finds protection, and whole- 
sale deeds of darkness are securely and systematically 
performed. 

I do not say this on my own mere authority. I 
had a friend who had been himself a wine dealer ; 
and having read the startling statements, sometime 
since made public in relation to the brewing of wines, 
and the adulteration of other liquors generally, I 
inquired of that friend as to the verity of those 
statements. His reply was : « GOD FORGIVE 



FACTS. 203 

I what has passed in MY OWN cellar, hut the statements 

MADE, ARE TRUE, ALL TRUE, I assure } r 0U." 

That friend lias since gone to his last account, as 
have doubtless many of those whose days on earth 
were shortened by the poisons he dispensed. But I 
still remember, and shall long remember, both the 
terms and tone of that laconic answer, " THE 
STATEMENTS made are true, all true I assure you" 

But not on the testimony of that friend does the 
evidence of these frauds depend. Another friend 
informed me that the executor of a wine dealer, in a 
city which he named, assured him that in the inven- 
tory of articles for the manufacture of wine, found 
in the cellar of that dealer, and which amounted to 
many thousand dollars, there w r as not one dollar for 
the juice of the grape. And still another friend 
informed me, that in examining, as an assignee, the 
papers of a house in that city which dealt in wines, 
and which had stopped payment, he found evidence 
of the purchase during the preceding year, of 
hundreds of casks of cider, but none of wine. And 
yet it was not cider, but wine, w^hich had been sup- 
posed to have been dealt out by that house to its 
confiding customers, 

I might proceed, but it is unnecessary. These are 
not, and are known not to be, solitary cases, but 
samples merely, of what is taking place in almost, if 
not quite, all our larger cities, and in many even of 
our towns and villages. 

But to this it is replied, that although spurious 
wines may be fabricated at. home, pure wine, and in 

NOTT. 



204 VINTAGE OF OPORTO USED IN LONDON. 

quantity, is imported from abroad. Is it so? Where 
and by whom, I ask, is pure wine imported ? No- 
where, and by no one ; nor in the ordinary course of 
importation can it be. The ocean barrier lies between 
us and the vineyards of the east. The Q-od of nature 
has placed it there, and it cannot be removed. To 
cross the sea, wine must be " brandied," and is 
"brandied," as analysis has shown. 

And yet the Christian fathers refused the use of 
wine, even in the sacrament, unless mixed and diluted 
with water ; whereas the purest wines we use are 
not only fermented, but also mixed with brandy, or 
otherwise rendered pungent and corrosive, by the 
introduction of some other ingredient, or of alcohol 
in some other if not intenser form. 

Such is the boasted article, falsely called wine, 
with which our market is supplied. Would that it 
was the only article ; but it is not, nor is it the worst. 
Spurious wines — wines of the vilest character, and 
in the greatest quantities, are imported from abroad, 
as well as manufactured at home. This the nation 
does not know, but they who supply the nation 
know this. In London alone, more port wine is 
drank than is furnished by the entire vintage at 
Oporto ; and yet London supplies the whole civilized 
world with port. Whence is this excess derived ? 
Not surely from the vineyards along the banks of 
the Douro,but from the caverns aside the bed of the 
Thames. Nor from these alone. At Oporto itself, 
at Madeira, and elsewhere, throughout the grape 



ARTICLE FROM THE LONDON TIMES 205 

bearing region, similar, if not even greater frauds, are 
committed. 

" It is not, perhaps, generally known," I quote 
from the London Times, " it is not, perhaps, gener- 
ally known that very large establishments exist at 
Celte and Marseilles, in the south of France, for the 
manufacture of every description of wines, the 
natural products, not only of France, but of all other 
wine growing and wine exporting countries ; some 
of these establishments are on so large a scale as to 
give employment to an equal, if not a greater num- 
ber of persons than our large breweries. 

" It is no uncommon occurrence with speculators 
engaged in this sort of elicit traffic, to purchase and 
ship imitation wines, fabricated in the places named, 
to Madeira, where by collusion with persons in the 
custom-house department in the island, the wines 
are landed "in the entrepot, and thence, after being 
branded with the usual marks of the genuine Madeira 
vintage, reshipped, principally, it is believed, to the 
United States. The scale of gratuity for this sort of 
work to the officials interested, may be estimated by 
the fact that, on one occasion, seventy pipes were 
thus surreptitiously j3assed at a chargeof $1000. It 
is a circumstance no less singular, that the same 
manufacture is said to be commonly carried on with 
counterfeit wine made up in Celte and Marseilles, 
and thence dispatched to Oporto, where the same 
process of landing, branding and reshipment as 
genuine Port, is gone through ; the destination of 
this spurious article being most generally to the 



206 FACTS. 

United States. Such is the extent of this nefarious 
commerce, that one individual alone has been pointed 
out in the .French ports, who has been in the habit 
of dispatching, four times in the year, twenty-five 
thousand bottles of champagne each shipment, of 
wines not the produce of the Champagne districts, 
but fabricated in these wine factories.'' A scientific 
gentleman purchased from the importer a bottle of 
champagne in New-York, and had the same analyzed. 
It was found to contain a quarter of an ounce of 
sugar of lead. 

Correspondent to this, was that letter from Madeira 
by an officer of our navy, stating that but thirty 
thousand barrels of wine w r as produced on the island, 
and fifty thousand claimed to be from thence, drank 
in America alone 

In confirmation of this statement, a friend of mine, 
and a citizen of ours, James C. Duane, Esq., in- 
formed me that having been induced to purchase a 
cask of port wine, by the fact that it had just been 
received direct from Oporto, by a house in New- 
York, in the honor and integrity of wdiich entire con- 
fidence could be placed, he drew off and bottled and 
secured with his own hands, its precious contents, 
to be reserved for the especial use of friends ; and 
that having done so, and having thereafter occasion 
to cause that cask to be sawed in two, he found to 
his astonishment that its lees consisted of a large 
quantity of the shavings of logwood, a residuum of 
alum and other ingredients, the name and nature of 
which were to him unknown. 



INGREDIENTS. 207 

What secrets other wine casks would reveal, were 
their contents examined, is not difficult to conjecture, 
or if knowledge be preferred to conjecture, even that 
would not be of difficult attainment. * 



* Would you wish to be informed what the ingredieuts are that en- 
ter into the composition of those fabrications called wines, so obliging- 
ly prepared in caverns and garrets at home, or no less obligingly sup- 
plied from the brew-houses of the grape bearing countries abroad? 
That wish may be gratified by consulting M. P. Orfila on poisons, (first 
American ed., 1819), from which author the following extracts have 
been made : 

Page 198: " Wines adulterated by various substances. The object 
is to mask defects, or give color, odor or strength." — Jour. y T. £/"., p. 
43, year 1838. 

Page 199: " Wines adulterated by lead. Sugar of lead, ceruse, and 
still more frequently, litharge, are mixed^with acid or sharp tasted wines, 
in order to render them less so. and these substances do in fact give 
them a sweet taste." 

Page 74, 5 : Speaking of sugar of lead he says : "It gives a sweet, 
astringent, metallic taste, constriction of the throat, pain in the stomach, 
desire to vomit, or vomiting (47), foetid eructations, hiccough, difficulty 
of respiration, thirst, cramps, coldness of limbs, convulsions,- change 
of features, delirium, &c. 

Page 202: " White wines adulterated with lead." 

Page 208 : u Red wines adulterated with lead. W 7 ines adulterated 

with alum. The object of this adulteration is and to give 

them an astringent taste ; effects — digestion painful, vomiting from 
time to time, obstruction of bcwels, and piles, are the results of drink- 
ing wine thus adulterated," 

Page 306 : " Wines adulterated with chalk: Design — to saturate 
acetic or tartaric acid, and destroy the sharpness." 

Page 307 : " Wines adulterated by brandy. It occurs sometimes 
that brandy is added to weak wines ; in other circumstances, wine with 
a mixture of cider or other spirituous liquor, and brandy, logwood, san- 
dal wood, or some other coloring matter being added." 



203 INGREDIENTS. 

Indeed chemistry has supplied such facilities, and 
avarice such motives for the adulteration of intoxica- 
ting liquors of every kind, that though fermented 



Page 208 : " Means employed to give color to wine — old wines be 
ing in general, of a deeper color than new wines. This is done by ex 
posing to the air, by sugar, by the acid of sulphurous acid gas ; and b y 
vaccinum, myrtillus, logwood chips and other substances which also 
render them astringent," 

Page 210 : " Wines adulterated by sweet or astringent substances, 
sugar, raisins, extract of oak and willow bark." 

Page 34, 35 : " Sulphuric and nitric acid, and the alkalies, &c, in- 
flame the parts with which they are placed in contact, but in different 
degrees. There are some which produce so great an inflammation that 
they may be regarded as caustics almost as powerful as the actual cau- 
tery. They are called corosive or escharotics ; they evidently cause a 
death in the same manner as burns. Such are the concentrated acids, 
alkalies, &c. There are others whose caustic effects are less intense, 
but which produce death in a more rapid manner, because they are ab- 
sorbed, mixed with the blood, carried into the circulation, destroy the 
vital properties of the heart, lungs, brain, and nervous system." 

Page 44 : " The effects of the alkalies is nearly similar to that of the 
acids, &c." 

Page 75 ; u If in place of taking a large dose of lead, water or wine, 
containing but a small portion, is taken, no immediate inconvenience 
will be felt; "but if the practice be long continued, a disease similar to 
that of the cholic of painters will arise, which, in certain cases, is 
true palsy." 

Page 100 : " Nux vomica, cocculus indicus, introduced into the 
stomach, or applied to wounds, are repeatedly absorbed, and affect the 
brain or spinal marrow near the neck. They occasion a general rigidi- 
ty and convulsions. The head is thrown back, the chest is dilated with 
diilieulty, respiration is greatly impeded, and death is the consequence, 
and that in a very few moments, if the dose has been great. The ef- 
fects on some are not continual, but give rise to fits from time to time, 
in the intervals of which the individual appears little affected. Opium 
and poppy heads are more or less poisonous." 



ONLY BAD WINE CONDEMNED. 209 

liquors were harmless, safety can only be found in 

TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 



From Aceum on Culinary Poisons, the following extracts are made : 

Page 74 : "It is sufficiently evident, that few of these commodities, 
which are the objects of commerce, are adulterated to a greater ex- 
tent than wine. Alum, Brazil wood, gypsum, oak saw dust and husks 
of filberts, are used to brighten, color, clear and make astringent, wines. 
A mixture of spoiled foreign and home made wines is converted into 
the wretched compound frequently sold under the name of genuine 
old Port." 

Page 76 : *' Various expedients are resorted to for the purpose of 
communicating particular flavors to insipid wines. Bitter almonds, 
cherry, laurel water, &C, are used." 

Page 76 : u The sophistication of wines is carried on to an enormous 
extent. Many thousands of pipes of spoiled cider are annually brought 
hither from the country for the purpose of being converted into facti- 
tious wine." 

Page 78, 80 : " Artisans are regularly employed in staining casks 
and crusting casks and bottles, and making an astringent extract for 
old port. There are many other sophistications which are deceptive, 
and which are connected with another branch of an absolutely crimi- 
nal nature." 

Page 81 • " Several well authenticated facts prove these adulterations 
of wine with substances deleterious to health to be practiced oftener 
than is perhaps expected." 

Page 82 : u The most dangerous adulteration of wine is by some 
preparations of lead. Lead is certainly employed for this purpose. 
Merchants persuade themselves that the minute quantity employed for 
that purpose is perfectly harmless. But chemical analysis proves the 
contrary, and it must be pronounced highly deleterious. Lead, in 
whatever state it is taken into the stomach, occasions terrible diseases. 
And wine adulterated with the minutest quantity of it becomes a slow 
poison. 

u The merchant or dealer who practices this dangerous sophistication, 
adds the crime of murder to that of fraud ; and deliberately scatters 
the seeds of disease and death among those who contribute to his 
emolument." 



210 INFLUENCE OF A NAME. 

And yet when we mention total abstinence from 
even the adulterated liquors here in use, we are met 
as before, and sometimes even, alas ! that it should 
be so, by good men too, with the authority of the 
Bible ; as if the Bible had ever had anything to say 
in favor of this modern drunkard's drink, in any of 
its forms in use, in these ends of the earth. 

Be it so, that the Bible sanctioned the fruit of 
the vine in Palestine, does it follow from this that 
it sanctions also the juice of the grapes of Sodom 
and the apples of Gomorrah ? And yet it as truly 
sanctions these as it sanctions "that wine of drag- 
ons and poison of asps" in use as a beverage in 
America. 

Can it be needful to repeat, in the conclusion of 
this article, what we said at its commencement, that 
it is only against bad wine, wine that Solomon repro- 
bated, wine that caused wx>e and sorrow and wounds 
without cause, that we array ourselves ? 

The wine that David commended was good wine; 
the wine that Jesus Christ miraculously supplied was 
good wine — wine worthy of its Author, of the guests 
and the occasion ; and when He shall again honor 
the bridal chamber by His presence and supply 



These words of Acetim are in perfect keeping with the recent con- 
fession of a wine dealer, who on his death-bed, acknowledged in the 
bitterness of penitential sorrow, u that he had often seen his customers 
wasting away around him, poisoned by that he had -meted out to them, 
and that same wine which was the cause of their decline, was often 
prescribed by their physicians as the means for their recovery." 



INFLUENCE OF A NAME. 211 

the guests by His agency, or when another in His 
name and by His authority shall do this, and we 
refuse that cup of blessings, it will be time enough 
to confront us with Christ's example, and accuse us 
of impugning his authority. 

What influence there is in a name ! Because Christ 
changed water into wine in Cana of Galilee, Chris- 
tians may not abjure the use, not of the fruit of the 
vineyards of Palestine, not of the fruit of the vine 
at all, but the product of the still and the brewhouse 
in America ! as if an inference, assented to by the 
intellect and binding the conscience, could be drawn 
from the one to the other. 

Be it then distinctly understood, that it is not the 
mere fruit of the vine, the pure wine of Palestine, 
nay, nor pure wine at all, about the virtues of 
which we hear so much, that this dispute is concern- 
ed with ; but it is about abrandied or brewed article, 
falsely called wine, in the sense the Bible speaks of 
wine with approbation, or even speaks of it at all, a 
factitious or spurious article, always supplied in 
fraud, and usually drank in ignorance; an article 
w r hich is corrupting the morals of youth, paralyzing 
the energies of manhood, polluting even female vir- 
tue, and bringing the grey hairs of age down with 
dishonor to the grave. It is, I repeat it, so far as 
respects wine, such an article, with which this dis- 
pute is concerned. This is the true issue. 

If there be a fruit of the vine in Palestine, or 
elsewhere, healthful, or even harmless, let the 
dwellers in those favored lands enjoy the full benefit 

NOTT. 



212 WHY THIS ULTRAISM? 

thereof; but in the name of humanity and religion, 
I protest against their palming on us, under the 
guise of such an article, the vile compounds now 
n market. And in the same mime, I protest against 
our consenting any longer to receive those com- 
pounds. 

But, after all, it is asked, why this ultraism ? No 
one thinks of abstaining, on account of gluttony, 
from eating ; why then from drinking, on account 
of drunkenness? Especially why, since gluttony is 
quite as prevalent and injurious as drunkenness ? Is 
it so, indeed? Where, then, I ask, is the evidence 
of the alarming fact ? Where are the families that 
gluttony has beggared, the individuals it has brutal- 
ized ? 

Where is that utter degradation, in form, and 
feeling, and intellect, produced by gluttony, which 
is every day exhibited by those ragged wretches 
with which intoxication strews the very gutters of 
the streets along which we pass? Where are the 
poor-houses, and prison-houses, and the lunatic asy- 
lums, that gluttony has peopled with its miserable 
victims ? 

That evils are occasionally produced by gluttony, 
I doubt not; but that those evils are either so fre- 
quent, or so frightful as the evils of drunkenness I 
have yet to learn; and the world has yet to learn 
this ; or even, if it were so, be it remembered, these 
are evils allied to drinking, not to abstinence. Show 
me a glutton, and you will show me a drinker, if 
not a drunkard. And however numerous such pitia- 



EATING DRINKING. 213 

ble objects may be in the ranks of moderate drinkers, 
in the ranks of " teetotalers " there are none of them. 
And you may go through the length and breadth of 
the land, and marshal the whole army of cold water 
drinkers, without finding one bloated, over eating 
gourmand among them all. So that drinking is 
chargeable with the double condemnation of both 
gluttony and drunkenness. 

But were gluttony as prevalent, which it is not, 
as drunkenness, where would be the pertinence of 
the argument attempted by the comparison? Man 
cannot live without eating. Eating, then, be its 
incidental evils what they may, cannot be dispensed, 
with. Xot so with drinking ; as far as the drunk- 
ard's drink is concerned, man can not only live with- 
out it, but he can also live longer and better without 
than with it ; all the tremendous evils, therefore, 
resulting from its use, are wanton and gratuitous. 

Gluttony results from excess in the use of aliments 
of every kind. Xot so with drunkenness — it is pro- 
duced by distilled and fermented liquors only. 

But were it otherwise ; were gluttony confined, 
like drunkenness, to the use of a single article, and 
that the vilest and least nutritious article existing ; 
and an article rendered vile and innutritious by vol- 
untary debasement, in the manner of preparing it 
from other articles, which, in the state Grod created 
them, were both nutritive and healthful; w r ere such 
the case with gluttony, who would not cry shame to 
the man who would still persist in selecting that 
article, to the neglect of other and unobjectionable 



214 COUNSEL OF WISDOM. 

articles, for the daily use of his family, cause it to be 
spread out before the eye of his children, and recom- 
mended to the taste of his guests ? 

Be it so, that drunkenness, unlike gluttony, springs 
only from the use of a single kind of beverage; still, 
to pretend that that beverage should be altogether 
abandoned on that account, is said to be not reason, 
but fanaticism. It is said that, up to that limit 
where sobriety ceases, and intemperance begins, men 
may indulge in the use of intoxicating liquors with 
safety, and ought not, therefore, to be deprived of 
the privilege of doing so. 

Hearer! Christian! does wisdom counsel thus? 
To me, it seems her voice counsels the inquirer after 
safety to keep away from even the vicinity of that 
slippery, treacherous cliff, down which the feet of 
the presumptuous sinner slide to ruin. 

Is it forgotten who it was that taught his disciples, 
day by day, to offer up that petition : " Lead us not 
into temptation ? " And shall God hold that man 
guiltless, who, having offered it, shall go away, and 
day by day spread temptation before his children, his 
family, his friends, and the stranger that comes 
within his influence ? 

" Up to the limit where sobriety ceases and 
intemperance begins, men may indulge in safety." 
Fatal maxim ! And the man who, now acting on 
it, dares to approach that limit, will, hereafter, given 
up of God, transgress it, and become, what so many 
temperate drinkers have become already, an habitual 
drunkard. 



i 



BE NOT DECEIVED BY NAMES. 215 

But be the clangers of indulging what they may, 
in abstaining there are no dangers. I have heard of 
multitudes ruined in health, and fortune, and fame, 
by the use of intoxicating liquors ; never of one, in 
either of these respects, by abstaining from their use. 

It is safe, then, and therefore wise, for parents, for 
Christians, and especially for Christian ministers, to 
take the side of abstinence in its totality ; and, stand- 
ing between the living and the dead and the dying, 
to say, both by precept and example, " touch not, 
taste not." 

Be not deceived by names. When you hear men 
quote the Bible in favor of a beverage that is filling 
the world with crime, disease and death, yon may be 
assured that the quotation is made in error ; that the 
article, here so fatal, is not the article which the Bible 
recommends, or that our manner of using it is not 
the manner which it sanctions. God w r ills the virtue 
and the happiness of his creatures, and cannot there- 
fore will the use, I mean such use of anything as 
tends to the subversion of both. 

Oil is as distinctly recommended in the Bible as 
wine ; and yet w T ho ever thought of insisting on the 
use of train oil, the oil of ambergris, or even of 
tobacco, on that account ? And since there are more 
kinds of wine than oil, it were at least as reason- 
able to defend the use of bad oil as of bad wine else- 
where, because good oil as well as good wine were 
once used in Palestine. The defence of the use of 
those kinds of oil, known to be offensive to the taste, 
or injurious to the health, and especially to the life 

NOTT. 



216 REASONING OF THE APOTHECARY. 

of man, would be deemed an absurdity not to be 
entertained. Why then entertain a similar absurdity 
in the defence of the use of similar kinds of wine? 
Why should the term wine, any more than the term 
oil, consecrate the use of the poisons designated 
by it ? 

What would be thought of the apothecary who 
should insist that wine to which antimony had been 
added w r as Scriptural, and ought to be used as a com- 
mon beverage, because wine to which no antimony 
had been added was allowed to be used in the Holy 
Land ; especially, what would be thought of the 
apothecary who should insist on this in the face of 
the qualms, and retching, and faintness, and prostra- 
tion apparent on every side, in consequence of the 
use of such poisonous wine ? And yet, it is not per- 
ceived why this reasoning of the apothecary would 
not be as legitimate as that of the moralist who 
insists that wine to which alcohol has been added is 
Scriptural, and ought to be used as a common beve- 
rage in America, because wine to which no alcohol 
had been added was so used in the Holy Land ; 
especially of the moralist who should insist on this, 
in the face of the withered intellect, the paralyzed 
energy, and the ultimate death which brandied wines 
were known to have occasioned? 

Take another and a parallel case. Milk and honej r 
were among the promised blessings of the land of 
promise, and they are employed in Scripture as 
emblems of the richest mercies ; and yet who does 
not know that honey is often deleterious, and that 



MILK POISONED. 217 

there are times and places in which to taste of milk 
is death ? 

"At Logansport," I quote here from a letter in 
the Danbury Herald, dated July 11, 1S33 : "At 
Logansport, on the banks of the Wabash, I was 
cautioned by an elderly lady against using either 
milk, butter or beef, on my way to Vincennes ; as a 
reason for her caution, she informed me that the milk 
sickness was common in the state. I had heard of 
it before, but knew little of it ; she informed me 
that very many deaths occurred annually by this 
dreadful malady. There is a difference of opinion as 
to the cause that produces it, but the general opinion 
is, that it is occasioned by the yellow oxide of arsenic, 
in the low ground and woodland, and particularly 
near the Wabash river ; and that some weed, yet 
unknown, imbibes the poison, and when eaten by 
the cattle, causes them to quiver, stagger, and die 
within a few hours. If cows eat it, the milk is 
poisoned, or butter that is made from the milk, and 
it is sure death to these who eat of either, as it is to 
the animal that eats of the weed. Great care is taken 
to bury such cattle as die with it ; for if dogs eat 
their flesh, they share the same fate, and it operates 
upon them as violently as upon the creature that was 
affected with it. The butcher, uniformly in this 
state, runs the victim of the knife a mile to heat the 
blood, and, if it has eaten the weed, it will at once, 
on stopping, quiver and shake ; if it does not, it is 
considered safe to butcher ; and this is the uniform 
10 



218 ABSURDITY INVOLVED. 

test, even when the beef cattle show no signs of hav- 
ing ate the weed. 

" Indiana is not alone in this misfortune ; there 
have been many cases in some parts of Ohio, and 
south of St. Louis, and other southwestern States. 
I have seen many farms, with comfortable buildings 
and improvements, entirely abandoned, and their 
owners fled to avoid this dreadful curse." 

Now what, I ask, would be thought of the sanity 
of a man who, w T ith his Bible in his hand, and his 
finger pointing to the text that speaks of the milk 
and honey of the Holy Land, should undertake to 
rebuke *that mother in Israel for presuming to 
recommend to that stranger traveler, not the mode- 
rate use, but total abstinence from an article, in 
Indiana, which God himself had authorized to be 
used in Palestine ? What would be thought of the 
sanity of the man who, standing in the great valley 
of the west, amid the dying and the dead — and after 
having surveyed the sick rooms where the victims of 
milk were agonizing, or the fresh graves where their 
corses had been buried, should gravely talk, not of 
abstinence, but of moderation in the use of this fatal 
aliment — should provide it for his family, place it 
on his table, proffer it to his friends, and even make 
a show of tasting it himself, out of reverence for the 
Bible, and through the dread of appearing to give 
countenance to ultraism? What would bethought 
of the sanity of such a man ? And yet what are all 
the ills which milk has occasioned on the other side 
of the mountains, since the foot of the white man 



APPEAL TO OBSERVATION AND EXPERIENCE. 219 

first trod the great valley of the west, compared with 
those which intoxicating liquor occasions annually, 
in any one of the cities of the east ? 

If these cases are not parallel, their want of paral- 
lelism only gives additional force to the argument 
drawn from their comparison. For, the milk in the 
valley of the west, deadly as it may be, is, notwith- 
standing, truly the milk of kine ; whereas the drunk- 
ard's drink of the east is not even the fruit of the 
vine, but the product of the brew-house; or, if it 
indeed ever partake of the fruit of the vine, it is not 
of that fruit in its purity, but in admixture with 
articles that debase it, so that the mixture no longer 
comes within the limits of that license granted to 
the wine of Palestine, whatever that license may be ; 
hence the whole question of the merit or demerit of 
the intoxicating liquors here in use, and of the inno- 
cence or guilt of using them, is to be decided, not by 
appealing to the Bible, but to observation and expe- 
rience. To that tribunal we appeal, and are prepared 
to abide the issue — the only rightful issue; and in 
making this appeal, we take no vantage ground; we 
claim no right to bind the conscience of others, or 
to sit in judgment on our brother. 

If patriots shall think — I speak as to wise men — ■ 
if patriots shall think, having examined the facts of 
the case, and with all these evils before their eyes, 
that it is befitting in them to continue the use of 
brandied, or even brewed wines; if they shall think, 
on the whole, that the happiness these liquors confer 



220 AMERICAN WINES PROFANE. 

exceeds in amount the miseries they inflict, let them 
drink on and abide the consequence. 

If Christians think — I speak as to conscientious 
men — if Christians think, having examined the facts 
of the case, and with all these evils before their eyes, 
that the benefits resulting from this drink of drunkards 
are so numerous or so signal as to require the influence 
of their example in the furtherance of its use, espe- 
cially on gala days and at weddings, let them give to 
the good cause the benefit of their influence ; but 
let them do this understanding^, and on account of 
the benefits which the church and the world are 
likely to derive from continuing its use, and not 
because the Bible sanctions it. If this drunkard's 
drink is to be hereafter drunk by Christians, let it be 
done by the authority of reason, and in the name of 
Ceres or Vesta, and not of Religion and Jesus. And 
why not by the authority of Religion and in the name 
of Jesus ? Neither the Bible or its Author, whatever 
may have been said of the mere fruit of the vine in 
Palestine, has said any thing in commendation of the 
products of the still and the brew-house in America. 

These unbidden, exciting, maddening mixtures are 
in every sense profane, and befit the orgies of Bacchus 
rather than the festivities of Christians. They are, at 
best, mixed wines, mixed with brandy, or even worse 
materials, which mixture the Bible nowhere tolerates, 
and which cannot, therefore, under its sanction, be 
distributed even to bridal guests. If hereafter, 
therefore, any Christian shall claim the liberty of 
countenancing the use of wine, falsely so called, on 



LET US TURN TO THE BOOK OF NATURE. 221 

gala days and at weddings, let him do so as a man, 
not as a Christian ; nor let him lay to his soul the 
flattering unction, that in doing so he is borne out 
by the Bible, and sheltered behind the example of 
his Saviour. If the use of these articles as a com- 
mon beverage can be vindicated at all, it is because 
of their utility, and only because of their utility, 
and not because religion either requires or sanctions 
such use ; for no such article as even the brandied 
wine of commerce existed in our Saviour's time ; for 
brandy itself did not then exist. This intenser poi- 
son is a product of human skill, and of later times. 
Having disabused our minds of the bewildering 
influence of that miserable sophism — that because 
the Bible authorized the use of good wine in Pales- 
tine, it had also authorized the use of bad wine in 
America; that because it spoke in terms of com- 
mendation of vineyards and wine presses there, it 
had, by implication, spoken in like terms of brew- 
houses and distilleries here ; having disabused our 
minds of the bewildering influence of this sophism, 
having learned what God has not said in the book 
of Eevelation, concerning the intoxicating liquors 
here in use, we are prepared to turn and open the 
book of Nature, and learn what he has said, and is 
still repeating there. 



LECTURE No. VHL 



MORAL AND NATURAL LAWS AS APPLIED 
TO STRONG DRINK. 

Books of Revelation and Nature — Misery springs from violations of 
law — Nature interrogated — Her answer returned — In crime 
disease and death — Spontaneous combustion — Distinction between 
stimulants and aliments — Example of moderate drinkers more in- 
jurious than of drunkards — Iniquities of fathers visited on chil- 
dren — Expostulation with moderate drinkers. 

The books of Revelation and of Nature were both 
written by the same unerring wisdom, and written 
for our instruction and reproof, on whom the ends 
of the world are come. 

The moral laws of God's kingdom are embodied 
in the former, the physical in the latter. The 
knowledge of the former is acquired by reading and 
meditation ; of the latter, by observation and exper- 
iment. As the character of moral agents is made 
manifest by the works they perform, so the nature 
of material elements is made manifest by the effects 
which they produce. 

The laws of God, whether physical or moral, tend 
to promote the virtue and secure the happiness of 

all who are subject to those laws; and were that 

222 



TRUTHS IN REVELATION AND IN NATURE, 223 

subjection entire and universal, happiness would also 
be entire and universal. 

Misery never springs from obeying, always from 
disobeying the laws of the Creator. When we obey, 
we are in harmony — when we disobey, at variance 
with his government. Wherever misery exists, it 
always exists, therefore, in evidence that God's will 
has been disregarded, and some law of his physical 
or moral kingdom violated. 

On carefully examining those varied productions 
of nature with which we are surrounded, and which, 
like the forbidden fruit of Eden, may appear pleasant 
to the eyes, good for food, and to be desired to make 
one wise, it will be perceived that some were designed 
of God for sickness, some for health, some for 
habitual use, some for occasional use, and some to be 
wholly avoided. What his design was with respect 
to each several production, is revealed to the inquirer 
after truth, by the effects which they severally 
produce. 

That the use of every good creature of God, that is, 
such use as will, on the whole, conduce to happiness 
and virtue, is conformable to his will — and that such 
use of any of them as is subversive of either happi- 
ness or virtue, is contrary to his will, are truths 
inscribed alike on the pages of the book of Revela- 
tion and of Nature. 

Let us then, keeping in mind this obvious rule of 
interpreting the manifestations of Providence, consult 
this latter oracle, as to the will of God and the duty 
of man, in relation to intoxicating liquors. Yes, let 

KOTT. 



224 WHY THEIR USE AND ABUSE SO IDENTIFIED ? 

us enter and interrogate Nature in her own sanctuary, 
and let us attend to the response returned. Returned 
from whence ? From the bar-room — the banquet — 
the harvest-field — the deck of the merchantman and 
of the man-of-war- — from the poor-house — the prison- 
house — the mad-house and the graveyard; in one 
word, from everyplace on every part of the footstool 
of God where the inebriating cup is raised to human 
lips, or where the victims of its contained poison are 
assembled ; from a thousand places, and in a thou- 
sand forms is this response returned. It is returned 
in the sigh ^of the widow — the supplication of the 
orphan — the wail of the mourner- — the howl of the 
maniac, and the death-groan of the expiring. 

But do not these evils spring from the abuse not 
the use of the articles in question? Doubtless from 
the abuse of them, for to use them in a manner in 
which they were not intended to be used, is to abuse 
them. 

If the use of intoxicating liquors as a beverage in 
health, be such use of them as God ordained, and as 
God approves, how comes it that there use and their 
abuse are so identified, that the one seems to follow 
from the other consequentially, and as if by some 
necessity of nature ? It is not thus with rest, or 
sleep, or food, or any other of those bland restoratives 
which nature furnishes, and our exhausted strength 
requires. These all, though used habitually, and 
though their use be repeated from night to day, and 
from day to night, still operate benignly on the 



OUR FELLOW CREATURES DYING AROUND. 225 

system, and lose nothing of their revivifying and in- 
vigorating efficacy. 

Not so with intoxicating liquors. Here by the 
very ordinations of God, habitual use defeats itself, 
for it impairs the sensibility on which it operates. 
Hence the quantity must be increased as the sensi- 
bility is diminished, in order to keep up that plea- 
surable excitement at first produced; and hence by 
merely keeping up that excitement during a suffi- 
cient length of time, the constitution becomes im- 
paired and the process of inebriation commenced. 

But why debate this question, surrounded as we are 
by such numbers of wretched beings, whose enfeebled 
intellects or shattered constitutions evince that either 
alcohol is poison, or some other drug that is so, is 
combined with it in those fatal preparations dispensed 
alike from the bar-room and the grocery to unsus- 
pecting multitudes, under the imposing names of 
Rum, Grin, Brandy, Wine, Beer and even Cider. 

Here, at least, there is no mistake and no exagge- 
ration. Our fellow creatures are literally cfying 
around us, dying in numbers, dying in the city, dying 
in the country, dying of an insidious and loathsome 
disease, a disease that regards neither rank, or age, 
or sex; a disease distinctly marked and known to 
be induced by liquors purposely manufactured and 
distributed far and wide, as the common beverage of 
which the nation drinks. 

Do any of you who hear me, doubt the truth of 
this? Go then yourselves to the bar-room and the 
grocery, as I have done ; go see with your own eyoa 
11* 



226 EVIDENCE OF GOD'S DISPLEASURE. 

the haggard countenance, the emaciated forms, the 
trembling nerves and the demented looks of those 
wretched beings, once human beings, who appear 
like spectres from another world, within those dens 
of disease and death. Go, hear with your own ears 
their lascivious and silly jests, their idiotic laugh, 
their sepulchral moan, and that unearthly curse 
stammered forth from their quivering and blistered 
lips. Does any one still doubt ? let him then interro- 
gate the poor-house, and the jail, and the prison-house, 
and let them answer whence their wretched inmates 
are supplied ! Let him ask the sepulchre, and let it 
say what sends such numbers, prematurely, and un- 
called for, to its dread abode ! 

O ! if the dead could speak, the response returned 
from thence would move alike the surface of the 
earth and the bosom of the sea ; for there is scarcely 
a spot of either that has not witnessed the drunkard's 
degradation, and become itself the covering of a 
drunkard's grave. 

Now, this whole downward process is an evidence 
of God's displeasure on account of abused mercies; a 
displeasure written on many a page of Providence in 
frightful characters, sometimes even in character of fire. 

The end of Nadab and Abihu, whom fire from the 
Lord consumed, was scarcely more signal or more 
terrible than the end of those miserable beings who 
are, with increasing frequency, consumed by the slow 
and quenchless fires which the use of intoxicating 
liquors hath gradually kindled in the living fibres of 
their own bodies. 



SPONTANEOUS COMBUSTION OP DRUNKARDS. 227 

When, a few years since, a case of spontaneous 
combustion, occurring in the person of an habitual 
drunkard, was referred to in a temperance address by 
a distinguished layman, it was generlly regretted. 
Few of the friends of temperance were prepared to 
endorse what then seemed to them so improbable a 
statement, while the manufacturers and venders, and 
drinkers of this fiery element took occasion to pro- 
claim more loudly than ever the folly and fanaticism 
of men who could be so weak themselves as to be- 
lieve, and so impertinent as to attempt to impose on 
others the belief of such ridiculous occurrences. 

But these cases of the death of drunkards by inter- 
nal fires, kindled often spontaneously, as has been 
supposed, have become so numerous and so incontro- 
vertible, that I presume no person of information will 
now be found who will venture to call the reality of 
their existence in question. 

Says Professor Silliman, after having examined this 
subject: "In all such cases (of consuming alive in 
consequence of drunkenness), the entire body having 
become saturated with alcohol, absorbed into all its 
tissues, becomes highly inflammable, as is indi- 
cated by the vapor which reeks from the lungs in the 
breath of the drunkard ; this vapor, doubtless highly 
alcoholic, may take fire, and the body gradually con- 
sume." 5 * 

* It has been suggested by a learned friend (Rev. J. N. Campbell), 
that recent experiments made in France had failed to confirm the 
opinion of Professor Silliman, and that it was supposed that the real 
cause was the presence of phosphorus. It seemed due to truth to 

NTott. 



228 CASE CITED* 

For the information of those who may not hereto- 
fore have had their attention called to this visitation 
of God on drunkards, and of all the dwellers on the 
earth, only on drunkards, it may, perhaps, not be 
amiss to give the melancholy details of a single case ; 
which details will be given in the words of the physi- 
cian (Dr. Peter Schofield, of Upper Canada,) who 
reported the same. 

The case in question was, says he: "that of a 
young man about twenty-five years of age. He had 
been an habitual drinker for many years. I saw him 
about nine o'clock in the evening on which it hap- 
pened ; he was then, as usual, not drunk, but full of 
liquor ; about eleven o'clock the same evening, I 
was called to see him. I found him literally roasted 
from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. 
He was found in a blacksmith's shop, just across from 
where he had been. The owner, all of a sudden, 
discovered an extensive light in his shop, as though 
the whole building was in one general flame. He 
ran with the greatest precipitancy, and on throwing 
open the door, discovered a man standing erect in 
the midst of a widely extended silver-colored flame, 
bearing, as he described it, exactly the appearance 
of the wick of a burning candle, in the midst of its 

mention tins ; although, should this supposition be confirmed, it will 
not materially affect the argument. For whether in these cases al- 
cohol be the actual combustile, or merely the exciting cause of the 
combustion, the fact still remains, that of all the dwellers on the 
earth, inebriates are the most exposed to this frightful visitation of 
Providence. 






CASE CITED. 229 

own flame. He seized him (the drunkard) by the 
shoulder and jerked him to the door, upon which the 
flame was instantly extinguished. There was no fire 
in the shop, neither was there any possibility of fire 
having been communicated to him from any external 
source. It was purely a case of spontaneous igni- 
tion. A general sloughing soon came on, and his 
flesh was consumed or removed in the dressing, leav- 
ing the bones and a few of the larger blood vessels ; 
the blood nevertheless rallied round the heart, and 
maintained the vital spark until the thirteenth day, 
when he died, not only the most loathsome, ill-featur- 
ed and dreadful picture that was ever presented to 
human view, but his shrieks, his cries and his lamen- 
tations also, were enough to rend a heart of adamant. 
He complained of no pain of body ; his flesh was 
gone. He said he was suffering the torments of hell ; 
that he was just upon the threshold, and should soon 
enter its dismal caverns, and in this frame of mind he 
gave up the ghost. ! the death of a drunkard ! 
Well may it be said to beggar all description. I 
have seen other drunkards die, but never in a man- 
ner so awful and affecting." 



230 



SCHEDULE OF NINETEEN CASES. 



g 






£ 



1:1 






^ 
















>, • 








GN © © 


O O (MOO 


S? r CJ J>HiO 


bo 


o io io 


O GO CO O O 


O -^ r-t lO CO 


< 


















if 


CO 




w 




t-. , «- 


>% 


.s 


• fcT • 


. ^ . . £ 


. ed ... 




o 


>1 -^ o 




g 




. - . . . 


o 


o3 o O 


S3 • •» 
.g ^ ,£j -5 .^5 

r-2 £ 03 t- O 


.«s . . . . 


a 
o 




•i: S • • • 




» O) i3 


a. 2 ° So© 


"~ ' ^o _• ^ 





,- ^3 asra 


o o rt 9 o-s 


VI 


£* a o 


L «^iS c - § 




Pc^ . 


p^^O^ O^ 


ts 


2 »" ' ' 
1 "1 ^ ' 


'S 

^3 vi c 


. . . 


* * s 


o 






. . . 






■U H-a O. 

o 5^ £ -? 




o 


a 

3 


c; o - d 


pq a pq a t> 


^ 

a 


of T3 


Q 




. .& 


Q, O 
CD 










CQ 












m 




T3 




, r; ,j5 






f-c 


tc 




CD 










, fi 


3 
c3 




. . ^2 . 




e3 L e3 






>-, 


© 

.2 

1 
g 




s - 
^3 . 




0? Oi <B 

g. of ° » ° S Q 

"^cS g | § " " 

<j <1 p=H pt^ fa< <^ 






t3 +j O 

ce o ^ 
Q^Ph 






of * 




of 
















CD 












o . . 
















bo 




O 


^ 




p< 




a 




. . .-P o . - 


• ^§D 


■{f • • •• 


o 
X 


g-V • • 








3 . • . 


H 


o ^ 




co v^ *^; 


«4H 


^2 


aT 


bO °* . . 




C • 03 "3 • 


. c 


*"»••" 


o 

32 




a- o-s^| 


^1 

o 3 

O cj 


O • of • 
^ >^ bo . 

2 o «- . 


53 
,0 




3 S o^^ « © £ 


s 

O 




C ^ •> <-> h 0) 


^ - ^ c; n " o 

^ Tn 5 S o co g 
CD .x D O « CJ 3 5 




t 3 T2 .X D -° 


5:Ph ^K goS 




c8^d IS , 








T3 


© 


05 CO • . 


, ^ lO Oi 05 M O O 


'S CO OS . . Oi . 

^ GO OS CNj 




C5 eO 


rri Tt( t^ r- 00 cm co 




O X- 


-t- r- j>- xr- xr- co oo 


>^>£- Xr- CO 


Eh 


f— 1 1— 1 • • 


• I— 1 l— 1 H i— I l—l r-H f— 1 


> 


d 


r- 


(M W^iQ 


«OM»050H(M 


CO tH VO CO c- GO o> 



WHAT DO THESE INDICATIONS MEAN? -231 

Now, I ask, what mean these indications of Provi- 
dence ? or can any sane man doubt what they mean? 
Is there anything obscure or equivocal in them ? 
Are the loss of reason, conscience, self-respect, the 
loss of health, the loss of life — the loss of life by 
delirium tremens, and especially by the slow fires 
of self-inflicted vengeance— Are these the bland and 
balmy rewards of obedience? or are they judgments, 
the fruits of sin ; judgments as intelligible as awful ? 
Doubtless they are judgments, all, all judgments — 
death by drunkenness, by delirium tremens, and 
especially death by spontaneous combustion, re- 
quires no comment. 

Those living human volcanos, exhibited usually, 
if not always, in the persons of inebriates, furnish a 
spectacle unutterably appalling ; in the view of 
which, as well as in the view of those other indices 
of wrath, it would seem as if habitual inebriety was 
a violation of the laws of life, visited in the providence 
of G-od, by signal tokens of his displeasure. 

How else are these siras and sims like these to be 
interpreted ? or why this distribution of the bounties 
of providenceMnto aliments and stimulants ? w T hy the 
marked and mighty difference in the effects which 
they produce by the ordination of God upon the con- 
stitution of man, if it be not intended to secure on 
his part a corresponding difference in the manner of 
their use ? 

Does, then, the habitual use of stimulants uni- 
formly impair, and that of aliments as uniformly re- 
store the sensibility on which they operate — and is 



23£ • EVEN MODERATE USE FORBIDDEN. 

this an ascertained, settled law of nature ? then is it 
a law that cannot with impunity be transgressed, 
and they who do transgress it, array themselves 
against the established order of God's eternal provi- 
dence, and they do this at their peril, no matter 
though done in ignorance — done, even on principle, 
done without the previous intention of offending 
God, or the knowledge thereafter of having offended 
Him — no matter though done by God's own children, 
still, true to his own unchanging nature of the gov- 
ernment He ordained, He maintains inviolate his laws, 
even though that maintenance should embitter the 
joys and shorten the days of those who both love and 
fear his name. 

Hence, on even the moderate use of intoxicating 
liquors, the frown of the Almighty is seen to rest ; I 
say on the moderate use, for no one ever became at 
once a drunkard — the process is progressive ; each 
successive victim is led down to ruin, by the slow 
and almost imperceptible degrees; gradually his 
reason is impaired, his moral sense is impaired, his 
constitution is impaired ; at length, brutalized in 
feeling, in character, in appearance, he is disowned 
by the human family, and stands forth apart, an out- 
cast, a loathing and a by- word, till finally his abused 
constitution gives way, and the death scene pre- 
maturely follows ; which death scene, together with 
the whole train of antecedent evils, are but the pre- 
ordained penalties of God's violated law ; a law dis- 
tinctly announced to transgressors, in every iniiiction 



RETRIBUTION. 233 

of its penalty, that meets his eye, through the whole 
line of his forbidden and disastrous way. 

If these things are so, then the manner of life per- 
sisted in by the wine drinker, beer drinker, and even 
cider drinker, as well as the rum and brandy and 
whiskey drinker, is at variance with the established 
order of nature, and the will of God as therein re- 
vealed. You, therefore, who persist in such a man- 
ner of life, cannot expect to attain that age to which 
you might otherwise attain, or to enjoy, even while 
life lasts, that blessedness which you might otherwise 
enjoy, or that your children, or your children's 
children will attain the one or enjoy the other. 

Here, as elsewhere, the law of God will find the 
transgressor out. Yes, drinker, moderate drinker, 
know that ere long you will pay in your own person, 
or in the person of a son or daughter, or brother or 
sister, or other kinsman or friend, the mighty forfeit 
you have dared to stake on the issue of transgressing, 
with impunity, the established order of God's un- 
changing providence. Nor are the evils which you 
are about to bring upon yourselves, or on your 
family, the only evils. Your position is one which 
more than any other obstructs the onward movement 
of the temperance cause, and may be compared to 
that of those men of old, who, planting themselves 
before the gate of heaven, neither entered in them- 
selves, nor suffered those who were entering, to go in. 

Talk not of the innocence of such a course — I 
address myself to those on whose minds the full force 
of modern discovery has been brought to bear — talk 



234 EXAMPLE MOST POWERFUL. 

not of the innocence of such a course ; there was a 
time when it might have been admissible so to talk; 
but those days of ignorance, with regard to many, 
are past. New truths have been developed, addi- 
tional light has been shed upon the world ; the specific 
and deadly poison contained in intoxicating liquors 
has, in the providence of God, been fully revealed, 
and, through that revelation he now calls on inebri- 
ates and the abettors of inebriation everywhere to re- 
pent. Yes, moderate drinker, he calls on you ; you 
whose manner of life is at variance with the settled 
order of his providence ; he calls on you not only to 
save yourself from the doom of drunkenness, but to 
save also those other misguided beings, whom you 
are urging forward by the force of your example to 
a like destruction. 

The ragged, squalid, brutal ram-drunkard, w T ho 
raves in the bar-room, consorts with swine in the 
gutter, or fills with clamor and dismay the cold and 
comfortless abode, to which, in the spirit of a demon, 
he returns at night, much as he injures himself, 
deeply wretched as he renders his family, exerts but 
little influence in beguiling others into an imitation 
of his revolting conduct. On the contrary, as far as 
his example goes, it tends to deter from, rather than 
allure to, criminal indulgence. From his degrada- 
tion and his woes, the note of warning is sounded 
both loud and long, that whoever will may hear it, 
and hearing understand. 

But reputable, moderate, Christian wine drinkers, 
that is, the drinkers of brandy or whiskey, in admix- 



J 



MODERATE DRINKERS. '235 

ture with wine or other preparations falsely called 
wine, the product, not of the vineyard, but of the 
still or the brew-house ; these are the men who send 
forth from the high places of society, and sometimes 
even from the hill of Zion and the portals of the 
sanctuary, an unsuspected, unrebuked, but powerful 
influence, which is secretly and silently doing on 
every side, among the young, among the aged, among 
even females, its work of death. It is this reputable, 
authorized, moderate drinking of these disguised 
poisons, under the cover of an orthodox Christian 
name, falsely assumed, which encourages youth in 
their occasional excesses, reconciles the public mind 
to holiday revelries, shelters from deserved reproach 
the bar-room tippler, and furnishes a salve even for 
the occasional inquietude of the brutal drunkard's 
conscience. 

Eegard this conduct as we may, there can be no 
question how God regards it. He has not left him- 
self without a witness of his displeasure, in any city, 
or town, or village, or hamlet throughout the 
land. His judgments are, and are seen to be abroad 
among us. 

Which, even of our own families, or the families 
with which we have become connected, have not 
been visited in the person of some of the members 
thereof with the curse of drunkenness, that appoint- 
ed retribution for the sin of drinking ? Which? It 
is not, hearer, yours, or yours, or mine : certainly 
there are not many, perhaps not even one within my 
hearing, who has not seen some friend or relative in 

NOTT. 



236 ARE NOT THE CHILDREN VISITED. 

ruin, unutterable ruin, produced by this useless, inju- 
rious, and yet reputable habit of moderate drinking ; ' 
a habit to which men cling, against their reason, 
against their conscience, often even against their in- 
clination, and this because they shrink from acting on 
their own responsibility, and lack the courage to 
obey God speaking in his providence,rather than man. 

If there were but one such pitiable object as a 
drunkard — a poor, diseased, demented drunkard, 
within the wdiole circle of our acquaintance, on whose 
intellect, on whose moral sense, on whose whole 
organism was inflicted the vengeance which alcohol 
inflicts, it might well fill us with dismay; what ought 
our emotions then to be, when there is not perhaps 
a single family throughout that circle which does not, 
in its relations, contain more than one such object ? 

Is not God evidently visiting the iniquities of 
fathers upon children in this respect? The fathers, 
enterprizing and industrious, accumulated wealth, 
acquired honors, but they conformed to the usages 
which fashion sanctioned, and presented the inebria- 
ting cup to their families, their friends, and even 
pressed it, early pressed it, to their children's lips. 
And where are those children now, and w T hat is their 
condition? Ah, me ! their condition is that of hope- 
less poverty, and they may be found, if not in prisons 
or hospitals, in the veriest rendezvous of vice, and 
among the most degraded and abandoned of the 
species. Or if not yet thus totally reduced and pub- 
licly disgraced, they may be found in concealment, 
disgraced in their own estimation, disgraced in the 



IS THERE ANY ABSOLUTE NECESSITY. 237 

estimation of friends, humbled, agonized friends, who 
are struggling to keep up appearances, and conceal 
from the public eye those blasted hopes, those un- 
natural crimes, and that unutterable misery that 
exists, in all the aggravation that despair can impart 
to misery, within their once peaceful and perhaps 
envied and joyous place of habitation. 

Why then in sober reason (for I may say as Paul 
said, "I am not mad, but speak the words of truth 
and soberness") why then, though no fanatic, and 
having no sympathy with fanatics — I repeat the in- 
terrogation, why should we, since neither revelation 
nor nature enjoins or even sanctions the procedure 
— why should we in the face of all the warnings of 
the present, of the past, of the word and the provi- 
dence of God, persist in the use of intoxicating 
liquors as a beverage ; especially in the use of such 
liquors as are bought and sold and drank among us ? 
Is there any absolute necessity, or even any plau- 
sible, I had almost said imaginable reason for it — I 
mean a reason which an intellectual, and moral, and 
immortal being would not blush to name ? 

Have those who use these liquors as a beverage 
any advantage over those who do not ? If so, what 
is it ? To say nothing of the guilt or innocence of 
their use, do those who use them live longer, or do 
they enjoy life better while they do live? Is their 
muscle firmer, their complexion more healthy, or 
their breath less offensive? Can they endure the sum- 
mer's heat or the winters cold longer? Are they 
more exempt from sickness, or when sickness comes, 



238 WHENCE THIS INCONSISTENCY. 

less liable to death ? Have they a clearer intellect, a 
serener frame of mind, a less irritable temper or a 
more approving conscience ? 

With all this array of bottles, and decanters, and 
demijohns, and beer barrels, and rum jugs, is there 
one attribute of body or of mind, one joy of earth or 
hope of Heaven, in reference to which he who drinks 
has any advantage over him who does not drink of 
this profane, bewildering, intoxicating beverage ? 

Let us not lose our reason with our temper. Now 
that the times of that ignorance which God winked 
at are passed ; now that chemistry, which reveals to 
the brewer the methods of adulteration, reveals also 
to mankind the methods of detection ; now that it is 
known not only that alcohol is poison, but also that 
other and intenser poisons are mingled with it in the 
distilled liquors, in the fermented liquors, nay, even 
in the very wines, falsely so called, which we drink ; 
now that religion and philosophy are both arrayed 
against it ; what is there to induce a Christian, a 
patriot^ or even a political economist, to desire to 
perpetuate among his countrymen and kindred the 
use of liquors — liquors never necessary, often hurt- 
ful, and sometimes even deadly? 

Whence this inconsistency? How comes it that 
individuals otherwise intelligent and sagacious, quick 
to perceive and prompt to pursue their true interest, 
should in this particular commit an error as flagrant 
as fatal, and already sad with disappointment and 
bleeding with wounds, — 

" Still press against that spear, 
On whose sharp point peace bleeds and hooe exoires?" 



- . 



DRUNKENNESS IS TERRIBLE, 239 

After all our experience, our bitter experience, of 
the fruits of intoxicating liquors, they must not be 
relinquished ; must not, unless in very measured 
terms, be spoken against. 

And yet it is not blessings, but judgments, nume- 
rous and grievous to be borne, that the use of these 
liquors has brought upon us ; nor on us alone — pau- 
perism and crime, disease arid death, have marked 
their introduction, and their progress, as a beverage, 
on every continent and island, and among every 
kindred, and tongue, and people, on the planet we 
inhabit. 

Drunkenness is terrible, and is admitted to be ter- 
rible. Half the miseries of the human family spring 
from drunkenness, and are known to spring from it ; 
and yet we are unwilling to relinquish the use of the 
very articles that produce it, the only articles that 
produce it, and which, unless we change our habits, 
or the course of nature changes, will continue to 
produce it among our posterity, through all future 
generations ! 

Talk not of ultraism ! than this, can there be 
greater ultraism? For Christians, for Christian 
parents, following the biers of neighbors, and friends, 
and kindred, and standing amid grave-yards filled 
with the victims of intoxicating liquors ; for Christ- 
ians and Christian parents thus situated to cling to 
their cups, and array themselves against the tempe- 
rance reformation ; or for them to lack the moral 
courage to remove at once and forever, from their 
tables and their side-boards, and from before the eyes 

NOTT 



240 TEETOTALERS FREE FROM BLAME. 

of their children, those elements of temptation, which 
are the admitted cause of all this guilt and misery ; 
if this be not fanaticism, and fanaticism the most ad- 
verse to the hopes of the country and of the world, 
then I know not whether anything exists upon this 
planet that deserves the name. 

In the guilt of this infliction of misery and waste 
of life which intoxicating liquors occasion, we who 
practice total abstinence are not partakers. What- 
ever other sins may be laid to our charge, w r e are 
free from this one^sin ; w T e do not taste this treacher- 
ous cup ourselves nor put it to our neighbor's lips. 

Since we became " teetotalers," w r e have not 
cooperated with the distiller, the beer brewer, or the 
wine brewer, or rum selling grocer, in training up 
victims for the dyspepsia, or dropsy, or consumption, 
or cholera, to operate upon. 

Nay, we have done nothing to furnish, even indi- 
rectly, by inebriation, new recruits of paupers for 
the poor-house, criminals for the prison-house, 
maniacs for the asylum, or sots for the gutter or the 
grave-yard. Of the thousands of the debased beings 
now begging in rags, toiling among convicts, or rav- 
ing with delirium tremens, none owe their debase- 
ment or their misery to the influence of our counsel 
or example. 

But so far as we are concerned, we have taken 
from the inebriate the shelter of both ; we have put 
it out of his power, while harranguing to his com- 
panions in public, or communing with himself in 
private, to lay that flattering unction to his soul, that 



J 



A CONSOLATION. 241 

sober, reflecting, moral men, nay, that even profes- 
sors of religion, nay, even teachers of religion, are oil 
his side, and that in their conduct he can find a vin- 
dication of his own. 

Especially have we put it beyond the power of 
those interesting youth, removed from their friends 
and their home, and entrusted to our care ; youth 
surrounded by so many snares, exposed to so many 
temptations ; especially have we put it beyond their 
power to find, in our precepts or example, either 
pretext or apology for tasting even of that fatal 
chalice which, by bewildering the reason and inflaming 
the passions, prepares the w T ay for taking the inceptive 
step in that downward course that leads through the 
dram shop, the oyster cellar, the play-house, the 
gaming room and those other nameless places of 
juvenile resort, aye ! places which I may not name, 
down to the abodes of death. 

In this thought there is a consolation, as well as in 
that other thought, that whatever may be our future 
lot on earth, whatever unknown and unexpected ills 
may be held in reservation for us and ours, one thing 
is certain, come what will, if true to our principles, 
we are at least secure from that whole class of curs- 
es comprehended in the single curse of drunkenness. 

Drinkers, I mean moderate drinkers, of all intoxi- 
cating liquors, whether students or citizens, profes- 
sors of religion or not, be assured that neither reve- 
lation or nature are on your side, and that whether 
you hear or forbear, the uniformity of Providence 

will be maintained and the purposes and government 
11 



242 PAUSE AND LOOK BACK. 

of God will stand, and in the onward progress of 
time, what has been will be hereafter. 

Pause, then, I beseech you ; look back on the past, 
and see within the circle of your acquaintance how 
many families you can number up who have not fur- 
nished to this dread destroyer at least one victim. 
Here I might But I forbear. ****** 

It were not befitting publicly to lift that veil that 
covers the painful reminiscences that occur. Let it 
rest ; or rather lift it mentally, and in the retirement 
of that secret chamber of your hearts, lift it ; 
yes, ye parents who have children now moderate 
drinkers — husbands that have wives now mode- 
rate drinkers — waives that have husbands now 
moderate drinkers — -lift that veil, and, in the light 
the past sheds upon the future, consider what they 
will hereafter be, and prepare betimes for your com- 
ing destiny. 

O ! Great God ! if the past be an index to the 
future ! — and why should it not be ? — if the past be 
an index to the future, who can, where intoxicating 
liquors, as a beverage, are in use, look around upon 
a family, however lovely, however innocent, howev- 
er full of promise, without shuddering? 

And why should not the past be an index to the 
future ? Admit this, — and is there anything unrea- 
sonable in its admission ? — admit this, and I ask no 
more. 

This admitted, and what discreet parent is there, 
what ingenuous child is there, who would not practice 
the self-denial and make the sacrifice, if there be 



.i 



SELF-DENIAL. ^43 

either self-denial or sacrifice, that would be availing 
to change the course of destiny, and ward off from 
those we love the impending danger? 

There is, hearer, as has been shown, such a self- 
denial and such a sacrifice. 

Time will tell who of you have the magnanimity 
to act accordingly, and eternity reveal the mighty 
consequences of that action. 



LECTUKE No. IX. 



MORAL AND NATURAL LAWS AS APPLIED 
TO STRONG DRINK. 

Nature still farther interrogated — Another page turned — The re- 
sponse in the structure of creation and the orderings of Provi- 
dence — Man made for temperance and chastity — Excess fatal — 
The intrepid engineer — The voice of Nature, the voice of God — 
His disapprobation of intoxicating liquors - stamped on the whole 
human organism — Especially the human stomach — Explanation 
of the drawings of Doct. Sewal — The maniac. 

In the preceding lecture we proposed to enter, and 
interrogate nature in her own temple, concerning the 
will of Grod, and the duty of man in relation to the 
use of intoxicating liquors. We have done so, and 
have heard the response that was returned. 

Let us again enter the same temple — repeat the 
same interrogation — - and turning another leaf in the 
book of nature, attend to the response returned — a 
response returned in the visible structure of creation 
and the daily orderings of Providence. 

Throughout the entire empire of Jehovah design 
is apparent, and in all the provinces of that empire 
means are adapted to ends. 

The oak, exposed to the onset of the tempest and 
liable to be riven by the lightnings of thunder, while 
it raises upwards its massive trunk, and spreads out 



WHY Tins DIFFERENCE OF STRUCTURE. 245 

its giant branches, sends downwards its roots of 
strength amid the crevices of the everlasting rocks, 
and thus stays itself on its broad, deep, strong foun- 
dations. Whereas the ivy that entwines that trunk, 
and the osier that grows beneath the shadow of those 
branches, are frail, delicate, and proclaimed by their 
very structure to be designed, not to furnish, but to 
receive protection. 

The eye and the wing of the eagle " that dwelleth 
upon the crag of the rock and seeketh her prey afar 
off," are suited to her daring flight and extensive 
field of vision. 

Strength is given to the war horse ; his neck is 
clothed w 7 ith thunder — the sinews of Behemoth are 
like brass, his bones like bars of iron. The album of 
the forest tree is protected by its rind ; the organism 
of fish by their scales ; of brutes by their fur ; of 
birds by their plumage ; but the human organism is 
furnished with no adequate corresponding protection, 
against either the summer's heat or the winter's cold, 
and yet that organism is frail, delicate and compli- 
cated, beyond all imagining. 

What means this difference of structure and of 
defence, if it do not indicate a corresponding differ- 
ence of design? In this, O man, "fearfully and 
1 wonderfully made," thou hearest the voice of thy 
[Creator saying, " thou wast made for temperance and 
chastity — for the government of reason, for the 
restraints of conscience and of religion — destined to 
partake of purer joys and presently to enter on a 
higher and holier state of being, for which thou 



246 LAVOISIER. 

canst only be prepared by a practiced self-govern- 
ment, and a voluntary self-denial ; thy frail me- 
chanism cannot endure the unrestrained cravings of 
excited appetite or the rude impulses of inflamed 
passion. 

In health, aliments alone supply all the energy 
that such a structure as thine can endure ; and it is 
on rare and great occasions, only in sickness or other 
marked crises of thy being, that additional and 
auxiliary stimulants are admissible ; and the man 
who indulges in the habitual use of such stimulants, 
does this in defiance of law, a law written by the 
finger of God, in living characters, on the delicate 
organism of his own body ; * an organism against 

* Aliments are necessary a3 well to provide for the growth of the 
body in early life, as to repair the waste which, in old and young alike, 
is ever taking place. 

Lavoisier, a celebrated French chemist, states " that the skin alone, 
during every twenty-four hours, parts with twenty ounces of useless 
matter. To this important source of waste may be added that of the 
alimentary canal and various organs of excretion, not omitting also the 
impure air which is continually being emitted from the lungs. This 
large separation of useless matter indicates the necessity of a continual 
supply of fresh nourishment. The system otherwise would be liable to 
premature dissolution or decay. To affect this restoration the reparative 
organs must be in a healthy condition. Derangements of the digestive 
functions, in particular, is inimical to healthy restoration. The lungs, 
the heart, the liver, &c, have each their separate functions, and con- 
tribute their appropriate share towards restoring the wastes of the 
Bystem. Derangement, then, of any or all of these functions is more or 
less injurious to health by preventing those processes which are essen- 
tial to its continuance." 

To supply this waste which is perpetually taking place (Anti-Bac- 
chus, p. 1*78), " our food is digested, converted into blood, and circu- 
lated to every point, both external and internal, of our frame, and by thi? 



ST. MARTIN" — DIFFUSIVE STIMULANTS. 247 

which, by such indulgence, he is performing a suicidal 
act, the effect of which act soon becomes apparent, 



means we are nourished and our strengh is renewed. Animal food, 
wholesome bread, nutritious vegetables and fruits, when properly 
digested, amply and suitably supply the waste and absorption of the 
body. The gastric juice is produced in exact proportion to the wants 
of the system. In a laboring man the expenditure and exhaustion is 
much greater than in one who is inactive, and it is a well known fact 
that in the stomach of the former there is a larger quantity of gastric 
juice ready to digest or chyme a greater quantity of food, and for this 
reason, the recluse, if he eat as much as the plowman, must suffer 
from indigestion, because his stomach finds it difficult to digest more 
than his absorption actually requires. It must also be observed that 
nothing but l solid substances' can be digested. The stomach cannot 
digest water or any other liquor, and therefore cannot turn it into 
blood. Dr. Beaumont found, in the case of St. Martin, that liquids, as 
soon as they entered the stomach, were absorbed by the venous capil- 
lary tubes which are spread over that organ, and consequently carried 
out of the body by the kidneys. Milk was immediately coagulated, the 
whey absorbed and the curb digested ; soups, by these little tubes were 
filtered, the parts retained for digestion and the liquid or water taken 

I into the veins. The same is the case with beer, cider and wine. The 

v water which they contain, and the spirit, or strength, which i3 lighter 
than water, are taken up by the absorbents, and the very, very . small 

I portion of solid matter which is left, is, if not too hard for such a pro- 
cess, subjected to digestion. 

u Aliments are indispensable to health and vigor, and even to life 

: itself. It is otherwise with stimulants. Stimulants, whether local or 
diffusible, that is, whether acting merely on a single organ or on several, 

' neither repair the wastes of the organism, or add to the energy of the 
vital principle. They accelerate, merely for the time being, the action 
of the system, and by accelerating exhaust the vis vitoe, as well as 
blunt the sensibility of the whole nervous structure on which they 

■ ; operate. 

Local or simple stimulants (Bacchus, p. 323), irritate the parts with 
which they come in contact, and affect the other parts of the system 

Nott. 



248 CONSCIOUS SENSATION. 

in the deranged movement of that organism ; in the 
suspended performance of its several functions ; and 



only by reason of the vital connection which exists between the parts 
injured, and the other portions of the system A strong stimulant, for 
instance, applied to the stomach, injures its functions, and consequently 
more or less interferes with its capability to carry on perfect digestion. 
Hence other organic functions suffer indirectly, in part, by roason of 
their being deprived of proper nourishment, and partly because of the 
morbid sympathies which are excited in that important organ. 

2d. Diffusive stimulants also act injuriously on the parts with 
which they come in contact, but differ from the former class in their 
influence, being extented over the whole of the system. If an indi- 
vidual swallow a small proportion of pure spirit on an empty stomach, 
a sensation of burning or irritation ensues. Other and more distant 
organs, however, shortly afterwards participate. The brain in par- 
ticular, exhibits marks of disorder, and a species of temporary deli- 
rium, or mental excitement follows, in addition to general physical 
disturbance. All of these symptoms indicate some peculiar influence 
by which diffusive stimulants expand and operate over the whole of the 
animal functions. The organic medium by which this is effected will 
subsequently be referred to. 

For these reasons it will easily be perceived how incomparably 
more dangerous are the class of diffusive stimulants than those desig- 
nated as "simple stimulants." The latter exercise their injurious 
powers on a limited scale only ; while the former possess the property 
of injuring one or more of the vital functions at the same time. The 
brain, for example, may be silently undergoing destructive changes 
while at the same period the stomach and its functions may be so di& 
ordered as to hinder digestion and nutrition ; and thus the two granc 
sources of life and energy suffer either simultaneously or successively 
from the same pernicious cause. 

The brain in this case, of course, is affected through the medium of 
the nervous system, which is essential to life, and supplies all the func- 
tions through their respective organs with their vital energy; conse- 
quently an injury done to the nervous, necessarily extends its 
deleterious effects to all the operations of the system, and this in 






STIMULANTS THE VITAL POWER. 249 

the speedy and inevitable dissolution of all its parts 
— I say suicidal, because this premature dissolution 



proportion to the susceptibility and energy of the different parts, as 
regulated by their organic constitution. 

The peculiar powers of the nervous system bear an important rela- 
tion in regard to the present inquiry. In relation to diet, one of 
nature's sentinels consists in the distinct sensation which is experienced 
when the stomach is loaded with food, either improper in its quantity 
or injurious in quality. The class of diffusive stimulants, however, 
when taken in moderate quantities, produce more or less injury with- 
out exciting conscious sensation in the stomachi General exhiliration 
usually follows moderate vinous indulgence, but the stomach itself, 
w T hen in a state of health, may or may not display conscious gratifi- 
cation or dislike. 

In this consists (he great danger of moderate drinking. Individuals 
commonly do not feel any uneasy sensations consequent on moderate 
indulgence in wine. They cannot, therefore, for a moment suspect the 
slightest possibility of injurious consequencees arising from a cause 
apparently so innocent and devoid of danger. Experience and ex- 
tended observation, however, lead us to a contrary conclusion. The 
healthy relation of the system may for some time be almost impercep- 
tibly undermined, and its harmonious operations disturbed, and not the 
slightest suspicion be entertained that these changes have originated 
in some injurious though silent action on the digestive organs. " This 
circumstance," remarks Dr, Johnson, "leads us to divide into two 
great classes those symptomatic or sympathetic affections of various 
organs in the body, dependent on a morbid condition of the stomach 
and bowels, viz : into that which is accompanied by conscious sensation, 
irritation, pain, or obviously disordered functions of the organs of di- 
gestion — and into that which is not accompanied by sensible disorder 
of the said organs or their functions. Contrary to the general opinion, 
I venture to maintain, from very long and attentive observation of 
phenomena in others, as well as in my own person, that this latter class 
of human afflictions is infinitely more prevalent, more distressing and 
more obstinate than the former. It is a class of disorders, the source, 
seat and nature of which are, in nine cases out of ten, overlooked, and 
11* 



250 THE VITAL POWER. 

of a structure, formed originally for greater endur 
ance, is not owing, either in its inception, its progress 



for very obvious reasons, because the morbid phenomena present them- 
selves anywhere and everywhere except in the spot where they have 
their origin." — Essay on Indigestion, page 8. 

Thousands and tens of thousands of individuals are in the present 
day martyrs to indigestion, and more or less suffer from organic dis- 
orders of various kinds, altogether attributable to the moderate and 
habitual use of intoxicating liquors. 

♦Stimulants not only diminish the excitability of the system, they also 
diminish the vital power, " that property possessed by the human 
frame, which may be denominated the self preserving power of nature." 
The vital power is that mysterious influence which pervades all living 
matter, imparting life, vigor, and animation, in addition to the power 
of sustaining existence for a limited period. It sustains man through 
extraordinary physical exertion, and endows his constitution with the 
power to resist, to a certain extent, the effects of excessive heat or 
cold, labor and fatigue. Man is peculiarly subject to the vicissitudes 
of climate and of seasons. 'Business or '"pleasure may direct him to 
countries, the climates of which are either in the extremes of heat or 
cold. In his own or foreign lands, he may be exposed to sudden im- 
pressions, arising from the changes of the seasons. All of these vi- 
cissitudes the vital power enables him to sustain with comparative im- 
punity, provided he has not exhausted its influence by intemperate 
habits. The same power, in a healthy condition, preserves him from 
the injurious influence of marsh miasma, poisonous vegetable exhala- 
tions, and other noxious effluvia, to the dangers of which most persons 
are more or less subject. 

The vital power is the same in all human beings ; modified, it is true, 
by peculiar circumstances. It is possessed by the native of the torrid, 
as well as the frigid and temperate zones, and sustains him in all the 
physical exertions to which he is liable. The tenacity of this principle 
of nature displays itself in the wonderful exertions of travelers. 

The Arab, with a very small proportion of sustenance, traverses 
scorching deserts for hundreds and even thousands of miles ; the 
soldier, in the midst of the most trying physical circumstances, 



DR. IIUFELAND. 251 

or its consummation, to any unavoidable accident — 
to any necessity of nature, but to the violence of a 



endures long and enervating marches. A light proportion of food, a 
few hour's rest, and the body is invigorated, and again capable of 
encountering labors of an astonishing character. Such is the sustain- 
ing and life preserving influence of the vital power. How important, 
then, than mankind should minutely ascertain those circumstances 
which contribute to enervate and destroy this active principle. 

It may be observed, that this power can only be secured in a healthy 
state by the regular and harmonious action of all the functions of the 
system. It is subject to, and a consequence of a due performance of 
the organic laws. Proper food, air, exercise and rest are essential to 
its continuance. Every circumstance, therefore, which tends to derange 
or enfeeble the animal functions, diminishes in a greater or less degree 
the force of the vital power. Many circumstances contribute to this 
result, but among other causes none have so great a tendency to de- 
crease the vitality of the system as that of intemperance. Intoxi- 
cating liquors for a time increase the excitability of the vital power. 
This effect, however, is quickly succeeded by languor and exhaustion. 
Intemperance thus shortens the duration of human life. Each act of 
indulgence decreases the energy and strength of the vital power, until 
at last the unhappy victim of strong drink falls an unavoidable and 
premature victim to his unnatural career. 

To obtain a more familiar notion of the nature of the vital power, 
it may be interesting, by way of illustration, to compare the human 
frame to a machine of limited powers, in other words, one which, by 
previous experiment, is calculated to undergo for a limited period a 
certain degree of labor. Produce more labor from this machine than 
it is calculated to perform, and in the same proportion will be the 
limit of its duration. There is an exact analogy in this case with 
respect to the human frame. The Creator has given to our physical 
constitution a power sufficient for all natural purposes. If by intem- 
perance, of whatever character, or arising from whatever source, 
we excite irregular action in the system, the human machine becomes 
r )roportionably debilitated in its power and limited in its duration. 

Nott. 



252 DR. DOD. 

pressure to which it had been subjected through the 
rashness of the agent to whose supervision it had by 
its Maker been subjected. 



These general remarks will enable the reader to understand why it has 
been asserted that the length of a man's life may be estimated by tho 
pulsations he has strength to perform. An ingenious author, from 
this circumstance, makes the folio wing calculations : If we allow seventy 
years for the usual age of man, and sixty pulsations in a minute for the 
common measure of pulses of a temperate person, the number of pul- 
sations in his whole life would amount to 2.207,520,000. If by intem- 
perance he force his blood into a more rapid motion, so as to give 
seventy-five pulses in a minute, the same number of pulses would be 
completed in fifty-six years. His life by this means would be 
reduced fourteen years. The celebrated physician, Dr. Hufeland, 
appears to lay much stress on the circulation with respect to longevity. 
He remarks that 4 ' a slow uniform pulse is a strong sign of long life and 
a great means to promote it." And again, " a principal cause of our 
internal consumption or spontaneous wasting, lies in the continual 
circulation of the blood. He who has a hundred pulsations in a minute 
may be wasted far more quickly than he who has only fifty. Those 
therefore whose pulse is always quick, and in whom every trifling agi- 
tation of mind or every additional drop of wine increases the motion of 
the heart, are unfortunate candidates for longevity, since their whole 
life is a continued fever." Dr. Dod informs us that under the increased 
excitement of alcohol " the circulation is quickened and the diameter 
of the vessels through which the blood has to flow is diminished." 
More work is demanded at the very time that the capacity of these 
wonderful tubes for their labor is decreased. In the wise economy of 
nature, " a given amount of blood, with a given force in a given 
time," and through pipes of a given and proper " diameter," is to be 
circulated ; by drinking intoxicating drinks, we increase the quantity 
of fluid which we have changed into fiery, contaminated blood, we in- 
crease the force that propels it, we shorten the time in which it is to be 
done, and at the same moment decrease the diameter of the tubes 
through which it is to pass — and is it any wonder that blood vessels 
burst, sometimes on the brain and cause instant death? sometimes in 
the lungs, and afflict for life that mysterious purifier of the blood ? Is 



THE INTREPID ENGINEER. 253 

When during the late storm on the great western 
lakes, that intrepid engineer, of whom we have heard 
so much, planted his foot upon the lever of the safety 
valves,and caused his fires to be plied with that inflam- 
mable combustile, which suddenly supplied in such 



it wonderful that by the bursting of overworked, overheated and pois- 
oned vessels, " diseased deposits" shqjild be formed which may ulcerate 
the lungs, ossify the heart, produce cancers and calculi of various 
descriptions and kinds? 

Bleeding at the nose, hemorrhoidal and other diseased fluxes and 
swellings occur from the same cause. As alcohol especially, seeks the 
heart, the seat of life, and propels it with a deadly velocity, and 
seeks the brain, the seat of thought, intelligence and moral judg- 
ment, and, by loading the blood vessels of that delicate organ, 
encumbers the head, is it to be wondered at that palpitation of the 
heart ensues, or that the mind is too confused to think, or that the 
eye becomes dim, the ears deaf, and the tongue clammy ? Persons 
that drink stimulating liquors have a swimming in their heads, a 
dimness before their vision, a ringing in their ears, a nervous 
sense of obstruction in the organs of speech, a supposed ball rising 
up in their throats, and a palsied shake of the hand and tottering 
of the limbs. And nothing could be more natural than that it should 
be so. 

Dr. Gordon, of the London hospital, states that from actual obser- 
vation on his own patients, he knew that seventy-five cases of disease 
out of every hundred could be traced to drinking. He also declared 
that most of the bodies of moderate drinkers, which, when at Edin- 
burg, he had opened, were found diseased in the liver ; and that these 
symptoms appeared 'also in the bodies of temperate people which he 
had examined in the West Indies. He more than once says " that 
the bodies whose livers he had found diseased were those of moral and 
religious people." The same witness observed that "the mortality 
among the coal whippers who are brought to the London hospital is 
frightful." He also adds that " the moment these beer drinkers are , 
attacked with any acute disease, they are unable to bear depletion, 
and die directly." 



254: THE INTKEPID ENGINEER. 

quantities the mighty agent by which that noble 
steamer, in despite of the billows and the tempest, 
forced her way off from that rock-bound shore on 
which she had been driven, and which threatened all 
on board with instant and inevitable death— when 
during that storm that intrepid, engineer planted his 
foot on the lever of his safety valve and caused his 
fires to be plied with such inflammable combustible, 
would he have done this, think you, in the same assur- 
ance of hope, had his manner been, reckless of con- 
sequence, to subject his boilers and machinery, on 
every trivial occasion, to the like extreme and fright- 
ful pressure; or had these been so subjected and 
weakened and rent thereby, would they have re- 
sponded to the demand made upon them in this hour of 
danger? Ah no! it was because that engineer, prudent 
as well as intrepid, had hitherto spared his machinery 
and husbanded his resources, that when the crisis 
came, awful as it was, he was prepared to meet it. 

There are crises in other voyages to which the 
crisis just alluded to is quite analogous, when un- 
wonted energy of action is demanded, an energy 
which stimulants are availing to call forth. But even 
stimulants avail not where the organism itself, or 
the sensibility of the organism on which stimulants 
operate, has been impaired by stimulants. And hence 
the victim of disease often becomes prematurely the 
victim of death, because he has familiarized in health, 
and by familiarizing in health rendered impotent in 
• sickness, those remedial agencies which God in 
mercy has provided for those seasons of affliction. 



ASK YOUR PHYSICIAN. 255 

Know you not, drinker, that by the use in health 
of that which was provided for sickness, you are 
reversing the order of nature, and rendering health 
more precarious, sickness more speedy and more 
violent, and recovery therefrom more doubtful and 
more difficult ? 

Ask your physician, and he will tell you that even 
the moderate use of intoxicating liquors in health 
shortens its duration and increases in sickness the 
chances of death.* And how should it be otherwise ? 



* Those who have been accustomed to live freely, invariably fall an 
easy prey to the attacks of disease. With such persons the slightest 
injury is frequently attended with the most serious results. The vital 
functions are unable to perform their accustomed labors, and conse- 
quently the vis naturce is incapable of resisting the effects either of in- 
ternal or external injuries. Thus the slightest cold or comparatively 
trifling physical injury, is in general attended with danger and often 
with loss of life. In some inebriate cases the principle of vitality is so 
small that it is suddenly extinguished by little more than ordinary exer- 
tion or exposure to unusual heat or cold ; and even, as has not unfre- 
quently happened, by simple indulgence in a glass of cold water. 
The substance of the following remarks not very long ago went the 
rounds of the public papers: Medical men of experience in the metrop- 
olis are familiar with the fact that confirmed beer drinkers in 
London can scarcely scratch their fingers without risk of their lives. 
A copious London beer drinker is all one vital part ; he wears his heart 
upon his sleeve, bare to the death wound even from a rusty nail or the 
claw of a cat. The worst patients brought into the metropolitan 
hospitals are those apparently fine models of health, strength and sound- 
ness, the London draymen. It appears that when one of these receives 
a serious injury it is always necessary to amputate in order to give the 
patient the most distant chance of life. The draymen have the unlim- 
ited privilege of the brewer's cellar. Sir Astley Cooper on one occa- 
sion was called to a drayman, a powerful, fresh colored, healthy looking 



1 



256 ARE THESE FIT BEVERAGES V 

What are intoxicating liquors ? They are liquors, 
containing poison not merely, but containing it in 
quantity and intensity sufficient to disturb the healthy 
action of the system when used as a beverage, and 
were they not so, they would not be intoxicating. 
And are such liquors fit for use? 

The Providence of God has answered this interro- 
gation, which answer is conveyed in ruins, stamped 
by his appointment, from its first inception to its 
final cosummation, on the whole living human 
organism. I say human organism, for of all God's 
creature's having organs, man alone is chargeable 
with the folly, I had almost said the madness, of 
making use of poison as a beverage. On man's 
whole organism, therefore, is the influence of that 
poison stamped— on the brain, the heart, the lungs, 
the stomach, the viscera, nay not on these only, but 
also on the intellect, the passions, the moral sense, 
on the whole man in both natures, corrupting the 
body in anticipation of the sepulchre, and effacing 
the image of God from the soul. 

And can liquors which produce such ruins be a 
beverage fit for man ? fit to be placed on the side- 
man, who had suffered an injury in his finger from a small splinter of 
a stave. Suppuration had taken place in the wound, which appeared 
but of a trilling description. This distinguished surgeon as usual 
opened the small abscess with his lancet. Upon retiring, however, he 
ascertained that he had forgotten his lancet case. Returning to re- 
cover it, he found his patient in a dying state. In a few minutes, or at 
most a few hours, the unfortunate man was a corpse. Every medical 
man in London, concludes the writer of this statement, above all things 
dreads a beer drinker for his patient in a surgical case. 



TOUCH NOT TASTE NOT HANDLE NOT. 257 

board, and on the table in private families, to be 
provided for guests in the retirements of friendship, 
and spread out before the eye and proffered to the 
taste of youth, at New Year's salutations, on public 
occasions, and in promiscuous assemblies ? 

O that I could present before you the outer man, 
scathed and blasted, as it stands forth in real life, 
bearing on every fibre, and on every feature, that 
loathsome, leprous, vinous impress, of which those 
dark, dismal lines traced on canvass, about to be ex- 
hibited to-night, are merely symbols. 

O that I could present before you the inner man, 
still more scathed and blasted, bearing on every 
attribute and element of its immortal nature that 
same loathsome, leprous, vinous impress, but in colour- 
ing so horrible, that no lines ever drawn on canvass, 
however dark, can become an appropriate symbol 
thereof. 

Could I do this, I would not ask, nor attempt to 
return an answer to the question, whether such 
liquors — liquors which enervate and disease the body, 
degrade and defile the soul, were a beverage fit for 
immortal, heaven-descended, heaven-aspiring man to 
drink of. 

Nor would it be needful that I should do so. In 
that array of guilt and misery, with which these 
poisons have filled our world, there is a tongue that 
speaks, and speaks for God, and its language is (as I 
have before said) to you, to me, to all, touch not, 
taste not, handle not. 



258 REVELATION AND NATURE. 

That voice not only speaks for God, but it is God's 
voice that speaks. Yes, throughout the whole of 
nature, God's voice is heard. It is heard in the ocean's 
roar, the tempest's howl, and in the mutterings of 
thunder. Aye, it is heard, too, in the murmur of the 
rill, the rustle of the leaf, the whisper of the breeze, 
and in that deeper stillness in which no breeze whis- 
pers, nor leaf rustles; the temple of nature is God's 
temple, and throughout all its chambers he is present, 
is heard, is seen, is felt. He it is that " w r arms in the 
sun, refreshes in the breeze." 

Think not that God is heard only in the book of 
revelation. The book of nature, as well as the book 
of revelation, is a book of God. Both were written 
by him, and hence David bound them up together, 
and in the 19th Psalm you will find a summary of 
both. 

" The heavens," saith he, " the heavens declare the 
glory of God," and having said this, he adds in un- 
broken continuity, " the law of the Lord is perfect, 
converting the soul." 

These two books, which David more than thirty 
centuries since bound up together, have not yet been 
separated, and are both, with reverence, now, as for- 
merly, to be consulted ; and both, consulted on the 
question now at issue, return the same answer. It is 
the book of nature, however, with which chiefly we 
are now concerned. Let us examine its contents. 
Let us obey its teachings. 

Whatever obscurity there may be elsewhere, here 
there is no obscurity ; here there are no opposing 



TEMPERATE USE IMPOSSIBLE. 259 

phenomena to explain — no contradictory testimony 
to reconcile. After a lapse of six thousand years, the 
original law of God, concerning intoxicating poisons, 
with its awful and unchanged penalty, stands out to 
view, written, on the living organism of those who 
drink it, in characters so broad and bold, and plain, 
that he who runs may read. 

In view of this recorded prohibition of those 
poisons, talk not of temperate use ; such use belongs 
to authorized healthful beverage — to water, milk and 
wine ; I mean good, refreshing wine, such as might 
have been drank in Palestine, such as was drank 
at Cana ; even such wines, when used, are to be used 
temperately ; and there may be times, and I think 
the present is such a time, when from motives of 
humanity as well as religion their use should be dis- 
pensed with. 

But poisonous beverage, even poisonous wine, wine 
that intoxicates, wine the mocker; that serpent's 
tooth, that adder's sting, against which the book of 
revelation warns, and to which warning the book of 
nature in accents long and loud responds ; of such 
wine there is no temperate use. Such wine is poison- 
ous, and is therefore to be everywhere and at all 
times utterly rejected. The chalice that contains it, 
contains an element of death. It is not even to be 
received, or, having been received, is to be rejected; 
and happy the youth — the man — who dashes it 
untasted from his hand. 

This is not declamation — it is not the speaker, but 
thy Maker, hearer, that counsels thus. That counsel 

NOTT. 



260 THE STOMA€H IN ITS HEALTHY STATE. 

as we have said, is made apparent in ruins stamped 
by the ordination of Jehovah in every age, in every 
clime, and on every organ of every human being who 
transgresses his published law in regard to poisons. 
Yes, in ruins, stamped from their first inception in the 
moderate drinker, to their final consummation in the 
death of the drunkard by delirium tremens. 

The shadowing forth of these ruins, as seen in a 
single organ, transferred by the pencil from the dis- 
secting-room of the surgeon* to the canvass of the 
painter, I shall now proceed to exhibit and very 
briefly to illustrate. 

The organ in question is the human stomach, with 
its triple coatings, with its inlet for food, its outlet for 
chyme, its mysterious solvent for converting the 
former into the latter, and its contractile power for 
transmitting the same (when so converted) through 
other viscera, to be absorbed in the repairing of the 
wastes of an ever-perishing and renovated organ- 
ism. 

Fig. I represents the inner surface of this organ, 
exposed to view in its natural and healthy state — the 
state in which it was created, and in which it would 
ordinarily continue through life, but for those ele- 
ments of ruin with which, by the indiscretion of 
man, it is so early and often brought in contact.t 



* Dr. Thomas Sewal. 

f When this lecture was delivered, Dr. Sewal's drawings of tho 
human stomach were exhibited, and the text is the explanation of 
them severally, as then given. 



TEMPERATE AND HABITUAL DRUNKARDS. 261 

Fig. II represents the changed aspect of this same 
organ, as it appears in the person of the temperate 
drinker. You perceive how that delicate and beauti- 
ful net-work of blood-vessels, almost invisible in the 
healthy stomach, begins to be enlarged — how the 
whole interior surface, irritated and inflamed, exhib- 
its the inception of that progressive work of death, 
about to be accomplished. 

This change is effected by a well known law of 
nature, to wit, the rushing of the blood to any part 
of a sensitive texture to which any irritant is applied. 
You know what is the effect produced by even diluted 
alcohol when applied to the eye ; you know what 
the effect is, of holding even undiluted brandy in the 
mouth ; what, then, must be the effect of pouring 
such an exciting and corrosive poison into that deli- 
cate and vital organ, the human stomach ? 

Fig. Ill represents the stomach of the habitual 
drunkard, with its thickened walls, its distended 
blood-vessels, and its livid blotches, visible at irregu- 
lar intervals to the eye, like the unsightly rum blos- 
soms that overspread the countenance, in token of 
the havoc which disease, unseen, is making with the 
viscera, within. 

Eig. IV exhibits the ulcerated stomach of the habi- 
tual drunkard — with its loathsome, corroding sores, 
eating their way through its triple lining, and gra- 
dually extending over the intervening spaces; all 
bespeaking the extent of the hidden desolation 
which has already been effected. 



262 CANCEROUS STOMACH. 

Fig. V represents the frightful stomach of the ha- 
bitual drunkard, rendered still more frightful by the 
aggravation of a recent debauch. Its previously in- 
flamed surface has become still more inflamed, and 
its livid blotches still more livid. Grumous blood 
is issuing from its pores, and its whole putrid aspect 
indicates that the work of death is nearly consum- 
mated. 

Fig VI represents the cancerous stomach of the 
drunkard, or rather a cancerous ulcer in such a sto- 
mach, the coats of which stomach, as the surgeon 
who performed the dissections affirms, were thick- 
ened, and schirrous, and. its passages so obstructed as 
to prevent for some time previous to death the trans- 
mission of any nutriment to the system. 

Fig. VII represents a stomach in which this pro- 
gressive desolation is completed— it is the stomach 
of the maniac, the drunken maniac — as seen after 
death by delirium tremens, than which there is no 
death more dreadful, — signalized as it ever is by 
unearthly spectres, hydras and demons dire. 

It may have been the lot of some of you to have 
witnessed such a death scene ; if it has, you will 
bear me out in saying that no language can express 
its horrors. 

The following lines convey but a faint idea of the 
frightful ravings of a poor inebriate who died of de- 
lirium tremens in an asylum to which he had been 
removed, and who, amazed at the situation in which 
he found himself placed, conceived the idea that, 
though sane himself, the friends who had placed him 



RAVINGS OF THE INEBRIATE. 263 

there were deranged. Excited to frenzy and haunted 
by this illusion — 

Why am I thus, the maniac cried, 
Confined, 'mid crazy people ? Why ? 

I am not mad — knave, stand aside ! 
I'll have my freedom, or 111 die. 

It 's not for cure that here IVe come — 

I tell thee, all I want is rum — 
I must have rum. 

Sane ? yes, and have been all the while : 
Why, then, tormented thus ? 'Tis sad ! 

Why chained, and held in duress vile ? 
The men who brought me here were mad. 

I will not stay where spectres come — 

Let me go hence ; I must have rum, 
I must have rum. 

Tis he ! 'tis he ! my aged sire ! 

What has disturbed thee in thy grave ? 
Why bend on me that eye of fire ? 

Why torment, since thou canst not save ? 
Back to the churchyard whence you've come ! 
- Return, return ! but send me rum, 
! send me rum. 
Why is my mother musing there 

On that same consecrated spot 
Where once she taught me words of prayer f 

But now she hears — she heeds me not. 
Mute in her winding sheet she stands — 
Cold, cold, I feel her icy hands — 

Her icy hands ! 
She 's vanished; but a dearer friend — 

I know her by her angel smile — 
Has come her partner to attend, 

His hours of misery to beguile ; 
Haste ! haste ! loved one, and set me free ; 
'T were heaven to 'scape from hence to thee, 
From hence to thee. 



264 RAVINGS OF THE INEBRIATE. 

She does not hear — away she flies, 

Regardless of the chain I wear, 
Back to her mansion in the skies, 

To dwell with kindred spirits there. 
Why has she gone ? J^Why did she come ? 
God, I 'm ruined ! Give me rum, 

! give me rum. 

Hark ! hark ! for bread my children cry — 

A cry that drinks my spirits up ; 
But 't is in vain, in vain to try — 

give me back the drunkard's cup : 
My lips are parched, ray heart is sad — ' 
This cursed chain ! 't will make me mad ! 
'T will make me mad ! 

It wont wash out, that crimson stain ! 

I've scoured those spots, and made them white — 
Blood reappears again, 

Soon as morning brings the light ! 
When from my sleepless couch I come, 
To see — to feel 0" ! give me rum, 

1 must have rum. 

'T was there I heard his piteous cry, 

And saw his last, imploring look, 

But steeled my heart, and bade him die — 

Then from him golden treasures took : 
Accursed treasure — stinted sum- 
Reward of guilt ! Give — give me rum, 
! give me rum. 

Hark ! still I hear that piteous wail — 
Before my eyes his spectre stands, 

And when it frowns on me, I quail ; 
! I would fly to other lands ! 

But that, pursuing, there 't would come — 

There 's no escape ! ! give me rum, 
! give me rum. 



RAVINGS OF T1IK INEBRIATE. 265 

Guard ! guard those windows — bar that door — 

Yonder I armed bandits see ; 
They've robbed my house of all its store, 

And now return to murder me ; 
They 're breaking in, do n't let them come ; 
Drive — drive them hence — but give me rum, 

! give me rum. 

I stake again ? not I ! — no more, 

Heartless, accursed gamester ! No ! 
I staked with thee my all, before, 

And from thy den a beggar go. 
Go where ? A suicide to hell ! - ', 

And leave my orphan children here, 
In rags and wretchedness to dwell — 

A doom their father cannot bear, 

Will no one pity ? no one come ? — 

Not thou ! come not, man of prayer ! 
Shut that dread volume in thy hand — 

For me damnation's written there — 
No drunkard can in judgment stand ! 
Talk not of pardon there revealed — 

No, not to me — it is too late — 
Aly sentence is already sealed ; 

Tears never blot the book of fate. 
Too late ! too late these tidings come ; 
There is no hope ! give me rum, 

1 must have rum. 

Thou painted harlot, come not here ! 

I know thee by that lecherous look — 
I know that silvery voice I hear — 

Go home, and read God's holy book. 
For thee there's mercy — not for me : 

I 'in damned already — words can 7 t tell 
What sounds I hear, what sights I see ! 
I *m sure it can 't be worse in hell ! 



266 RAVINGS OF THE INEBRIATE. 

See how that rug those reptiles soil ! 

They 7 re crawling o'er me in my bed I 
I feel their clammy, snaky coil 

On every limb — around my head — 
With forked tongue I see them play ; 
I hear them hiss — tear them away 1 
Tear them away ! 

A fiend ! a fiend ! With many a dart, 

Glares on me with his bloodshot eye, 
And aims his missiles at my heart — 

! whither, whither shall I fly ? 
Fly? no ! it is no time for flight ! 

1 know thy hellish purpose well — 
Avaunt, avaunt, thou hated sprite, 

And hie thee to thy native hell I 

He 's gone ! he 's gone ! and I am free ; 

He *s gone, the faithless, braggart liar — 
He said he M come to summon me — 

See there again — my bed 's on fire ! 
Fire ! water ! help ! haste ! I die ! 

The flames are kindling round my head I 
This smoke ! I 'm strangling ! cannot fly — 

! snatch me from this burning bed ! 

There ! there again — that demon 's there, 

Crouching to make a fresh attack I 
See how his flaming eye-balls glare — 

Thou fiend of fiends, what 's brought thee back ? 
Back in thy car ? For whom ? For where ? 

He smiles — he beckons me to come — 
What are those words thou 'st written there ? 

" In hell they never want for rum I** 
In hell they never want for rum. 
Not want for rum ! Read that again — 

1 feel the spell ! haste, drive me down 
Where rum is' free — where revelers reign, 

And I can wear the drunkard's crown. 

* The rum maniac varied. 



RAVINGS OF THE INEBRIATE. 267 

Accept thy proffer, fiend ? I will, 

And to thy drunken banquet come ; 
Fill the great cauldron from thy still 

With boiling, burning, fiery rum — 
There will I quench this horrid thirst! 

With boon companions drink and dwell, 
Nor plead for rum. as here I must — 

There's liberty to drink in hell. 

Thus raved that maniac rum had made ■ — 
Then starting from his haunted bed — 

On, on ye demons, on ! he said, 

Then silent sunk — his soul had fled. 

Scoffer beware ! he in that shroud 

W r as once a temperate drinker too, 
And felt as safe — declaimed as loud 

Against extravagance, as you. 

And yet ere long I saw him stand 

Refusing, on the brink of hell 
A pardon from his Saviour's hand, 

Then plunging down with fiends to dwell. 

From thence, methinks, I hear him say, 

Dash, dash the chalice, break the spell, 
Stop while you can, and where you may — 

There 's no escape when once in hell. 

God, thy gracious spirit send, 

That we, the mocker's snare may fly, 
And thus escape that dreadful end, 

That death eternal, drunkards die. 



LECTURE No. X. 



THE TEAFFIC — APPEAL TO DEALERS. 

The injurious effect 'of abandoning the liquor trade considered — The 
expedient of total abstinence — The manner in which it should be 
enforced — An appeal to dealers. 

But would not the abandonment of intoxicating liquors, 
could the community be induced to abandon them, throw 
many an industrious individual out of employment, and 
deprive many a needy family of bread? I admit for a 
short time, and to a considerable extent, this would 
be the case : and I also admit that this is a circum- 
stance that deserves to be considered, and that, 
where kindness dwells, can not fail to be regretted. 

Some indeed there are who seem to think and 
speak of those engaged in the manufacture and sale 
of intoxicating liquors as mere wretches, infamous 
alike in person and in occupation, whose feelings 
and whose wants were not deserving of regard, but 
I do not so estimate character, nor have I thus ! 
learned Christ. 

It is not ours to sit in judgment on our brethren.. 
We see the outward appearance, God alone seeth the 
heart. I have known and still know men of talents 
and integrity, and so far as man can judge, of religion 



THE DOOM OF DRUNKENNESS IS SETTLED. 269 

too, who have long been engaged, and who are still 
engaged in these (to me) abhorred occupations : but 
I know also and rejoice to know that as information 
reaches and light breaks in upon their minds, one after 
another of their number is led first to doubt, then to 
disbelieve the innocence of his occupation, and then 
forever to abjure it. 

This change of opinion and of practice in relation 
to the manufacture and sale as w T ell as use of intoxica- 
ting liquors, is still progressive, and it will continue 
to progress ; others, and yet others, and yet others, 
instructed by the counsel and moved by the example 
of their brethren, will be induced to practice the same 
self-denials, and make the same sacrifices, until neither 
drunkard, nor vender of the drunkard's drink, shall 
remain within the limits of a purified and reclaimed 
city. Nor within its limits only ; for the entire race 
are destined to experience a moral renovation, and 
the earth which man inhabits, to become covered 
with works of righteousness, as well as filled w T ith the 
knowledge of God. 

The doom of drunkennes, as well as of oppression 
and every other vice, is settled — settled in the coun- 
cils of that Godhead who has declared, from his 
throne of mercy, that virtue shall prevail, and 
crime of every name and nature cease from off a 
ransomed, disinthralled planet. Already from that 
throne of mercy a redeeming spirit has been sent 
abroad among the nations, which begins to be appa- 
rent in their quickened moral feeling and onward 
moral movement. The conscience of the world 



270 THE PROMISE OF THE FUTURE. 

begins to be enlightened and turned towards the pre- 
vailing sin of drunkenness — the source and centre 
from which so many other sins are sent abroad over 
the face of the whole earth. If there be encourage- 
ment in the indications of Providence, or hope in the 
predictions of prophecy, this frightful abuse of the 
products of the harvest field and the vineyard, so 
wantonly manifested in the manufacture and sale and 
use of intoxicating liquors, must be corrected, and it 
will be corrected, or the glory of this republic will 
depart not only — but the progress of civilization be 
arrested also, and even the chariot wheels of the Son 
of God be rolled back. 

Let ns then, cheered by the successes of the past, 
and encouraged by the promise of the future, urge 
forward, with renewed energy, our work of mercy. 

There was a time when the whole Christian church 
could be congregated in an inner chamber at Jerusa- 
lem. Now its numbers, reckoned by millions, are 
spread abroad over continents and islands. Within 
even our own recollection, the same inner chamber 
would have contained all the advocates of total absti- 
nence in Christendom. Now their number too is 
reckoned by millions, and their influence is felt by 
the inhabitants of many a kingdom, and the seamen 
that navigate the waters of many a sea. 

During the ages gone by, the ruinous, loathsome 
and brutalizing effects of intemperance w r ere exten- 
sively experienced and deplored and counteracted. 
Governments legislated, moralists reasoned, Christians 
remonstrated, but to no purpose. In the face of all 



THE GREAT DISCOVERT. 271 

tliis array of influence, intemperance not only main- 
tained its ground, but constanty advanced ; and ad- 
vanced with constantly increasing rapidity. Death 
indeed came in aid of the cause of temperance, and 
swept away, especially during the prevalence of the 
cholera, crowds of inebriates, with a distinctive and 
exemplary vengeance. Suddenly the vacancies thus 
occasioned were filled up ; and, as if the course of life 
w T hence these supplies were furnished was exhaustiess, 
all the avenues of death w r ere not only reoccupied but 
crowded w T ith augmented numbers of fresh recruits. 
The hope even of reclaiming the world by any 
instrumentalities then in being, departed, and fear lest 
Christendom should be utterly despoiled by so detest- 
able a practice, took possession of many a reflecting 
mind. 

In that dark hour, the great discovery, That 
drunkenness is caused by drinking ; moderate, tem- 
perate, continuous drinking ; and that entire sobriety 
can be restored and maintained by abstinence ; in 
that dark hour, the great discovery was made and 
promulgated to the world. A discovery which, simple 
and obvious as it seems to be, had remained hid for 
ages — during which no one dreamed that mere drink- 
ing, regular, reputable, temperate drinking, injured 
anyone ; much less that it produced, and by a neces- 
sity of nature produced, that utter shameless drunken- 
ness which debased so many individuals, beggared so 
many families, and brought such indelible disgrace on 
community itself, This discovery, though not even 
yet generally known throughout community, has 

NOTT. 



272 CAUSE AND EFFECT. 

relieved more misery, conduced to more happiness, 
promoted to more virtue, and reclaimed from more 
guilt ; in one word, it has already shed more blessings 
on the past, and lit up more hope for the future, than 
any other discovery, whether physical, political or 
moral, with which the land and the age in which we 
live have been signalized. 

By this great discovery it has been made apparent 
that it is not drunkards, but moderate drinkers with 
whom the temperance reformation is chiefly concern- 
ed; for it is not on a change of habits in the former, 
but the latter, on which the destiny of the state and 
the nation hangs suspended. 

Drinking, and the manufacture and sale of that 
which makes drunkards, operates reciprocally as 
cause and effect on all the parties concerned. 

The manufacturer and vender furnish the temptation 
to the drinker, and the drinker in return gives coun- 
tenance and support both to the manufacturer and 
the vender. 

All these classes must be reformed before the 
triumph of the temperance cause will be complete ; 
and the reformation of either contributes to the re- 
formation of all. Every dram shop that is closed nar- 
rows the sphere of temptation, and every teetotaler 
that is gained contributes to the shutting up of a dram 
shop. And they must all be shut up, the rum and the 
wine and the beer selling grocery, and temperate 
drinking relinquished, or drunkenness can never be 
prevented, society purified from crime, relieved from 



PHYSICAL FORCE VAIN. 273 

pauperism, freed from disease, and human life ex- 
tended to its allowed limits. 

But how can this be affected, how can the pre- 
judices of whole classes of community be overcome, 
and the very habits of masses of men changed ? How 
have those mighty changes, even national changes, 
elsewhere and in former ages, been brought about?* 
How? sometimes by appealing to physical force ; some- 
times to wrong, and sometimes to right principles of volun- 
tary action. 

To physical force in the present instance, it were 
vain for us to appeal. There are those indeed, who 
have it in their power to answer by force, arguments 
even that are unanswerable by argument, and who, 
though unable to gain the mind by persuasion, can 
crush the body by violence. But thus it is not with 
the friends of total abstinence. We have not, and it 
is well we have not, at our disposal either pains or 
penalties. We cannot even abridge the perfect free- 
dom of the moral agents that surround us, perverse 
and erring as in our opinion their conduct may be. 
We cannot inhibit access either to the side-board or 
the rum-jug, and thus render inebriation either to the 
inan of fortune, or even the clay laborer, physically 
impossible ; for we can neither point the bayonet to 
the breast, or apply the lash to the back of the refrac- 
tory inebriate. Ours is a free country, and this an 



* Changes from barbarism to civilization — from bondage to liberty— 
and in the Emerald Isle, of late, from riot to order — from inebriety to 
temperance — how have these changes been brought about? 



274 TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 

enlightened age. Here men will think and speak 
and act according to their own convictions of duty; 
and they ought to do so. Unconvinced, I would not 
relinquish the manufacture, or sale, or use of intoxi- 
cating liquor at the bidding of another ; and I have 
no right to require that another should do this at 
my own bidding, and though I had, I could not by 
any pains or penalties at my command enforce that 
right. Compulsion then is out of the question.* 



* The author of course means "compulsion" by individuals, the 
temperance societies, and not compulsion by the law-making power of 
the state. No part of this lecture can justly be quoted against pro- 
hibitory legislation. It was written before that great device, " The 
Maine Law," was advocated, or thought necessary to the success of 
temperance. When the author says he would not relinquish the manu- 
facture or sale of liquor " at the bidding of another," he certainly does 
not mean that he would not do so, if he was so bidden by the officers 
of the law. 

To the above we add : The liquor traffic is not, and its public repute 
is not,, what it was when this lecture was written. The liquor has 
grown worse, and the character of the vendors has grown worse. As 
the pernicious effects of the traffic have been made apparent, one after 
another of the better class of persons who used to sell liquor (the most 
virtuous of men once engaged in it without scruple) have abandoned 
it, until it is now in the hands of persons, but a small proportion of 
whom were born in the midst of the temperance agitation. Of seven 
hundred and seventy-five liquor sellers in Albany (see the Prohibitionist 
for March, 1856), it was found that less than one hundred were 
born in America ; all the rest being foreign emigrants. Of all who 
were convicted of selling liquor contrary to the prohibitory law, in the 
city of Portland, Maine, not one, it is said, was born in the 
United States. And so it will be found that the grog-shop system, 
as it now exists in the United States ; from dram-selling up to 
the state prison and the gallows ; including all its monstrous 
brood of evils, in the shape of Intemperance, Pauperism and 






TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 275 

TO WRONG PRINCIPLES OF VOLUNTARY ACTION W6 

may, andalas ! too often do appeal. But such appeal, 



Crime, fully three-fourths of this whole grog-shop system, constituting 
the load, the oppression, the giant curse of the country, will be found 
a foreign importation. The quality of these wares, always bad and 
demoralizing, has deteriorated with the character of the vendors. 
Adulterations are not only not disguised, but they are publicly adver- 
tised in the newspapers. This new rascality in science is reduced to a 
trade, even in the case of what are called the best of liquors; while 
the frauds in the more common liquors are so flagrant and fatal, that 
nothing but intense vulgar avarice is visible in the motive, and hardly 
anything short of downright murder in the result. The following 
epithets, not invented by " Temperance fanatics," but by drinkers 
themselves, are now part of the stock phrases of all the bar-rooms in 
the country: "Fighting brandy;'' "Jersey lightning;" "Sword- 
fish ; " " Red-eye ; " " Rot-gut ; " " Blue ruin ; " u Liquor that will 
kill at forty paces ; " and such like. These, be it noted, are a sample 
of the dismal epithets, which are now used in grim earnest, by habitual 
drinkers — a sort of ground swell of detestation, from even the best 
friends of intoxicating liquors. And public sentiment, in regard to the 
traffic, has kept pace. From being thought to be an indispensable 
good, it has come to be regarded as at best but a necessary evil. In 
several states of the American Union, also in the British Province of 
New Brunswick, laws have been enacted prohibiting the sale of liquor 
(for a beverage) entirely. In some of these states, these laws have 
been embarrassed or overthrown, on technical grounds, by the courts; 
in others, mostly from political and party motives, they have been re- 
pealed. In these states, in several cases, some flagrant outrage has 
turned the point of public endurance. The arm of the municipal law 
withdrawn, the great law of self-preservation has been applied, to stay 
the desolation of the liquor traffic ; and it has been forcibly abated, as 
a public nuisance, by the direct hand of the people. 

In the Prohibitionist for the month of June, 1857, will be found 
recorded no less than nineteen such cases, which have been reported 
by exchanges, in less than in as many months. In Huron, in the State 
of Ohio, the sudden death, by means of the grog-shops, of an old 

Nott 



276 TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 

by whomsoever made,is not in keeping with the bene- 
volence of an enterprise, w T hich has as its object the 



woman, aroused public resentment to a degree which was no longer to 
be restrained. Some fifty women immediately armed themselves with 
hatchets and axes, proceeded to the places of sale, and demolished 
jugs, casks and demijohns, and spilt every drop of whiskey, brandy, 
wine and beer they could find. The same thing, pretty much, transpired 
at Wakeman, in the same state» Also in Lima, Salem, Albany, 
Moscow, Bellville and Kirkland — all in the State of Ohio. And so at 
Ellsworth, in the State of Maine ; at Kockport, in Massachusetts ; at 
Jamestown, in New York; at Plattsville, in Wisconsin ; at Chesterfield, 
in South Carolina ; and California, in Kentucky. And so, with circum- 
stances slightly different, at two places in Illinois — Earlville and 
Hanover. And in Indiana, three places — at Vienna, Princeton and 
Moorsville. In all these cases, the execution of the "search, seizure 
and destruction clause " was done by women. In one case, by the 
sister of a woman who was made drunk; and in the other cases, by 
campanies of women, numbering from a dozen to fifty. At Bellville, 
the women were tried for riot ; they were acquitted by the jury. At 
Wakeman they were also tried; these were discharged by the court. 
At Logansport, in Indiana, Mr. Wright (himself a judge), whose little 
boy had been made drunk by a liquor seller, armed himself with an axe, 
stove in the door of the groggery, broke all the bottles, and spilt all 
the liquor he could find ; then put on his Sunday clothes, and went to 
church. 

Such is a specimen (for details, see page 41 of vol. 4 of the Pro- 
hibitionist) of the most noticeable and significant signs of the times. 
Eor it is not merely that such things are done, but that they are pub- 
licly applauded, and approved of probably in every case, by nine per- 
sons out of every ten. They show that the liquor traffic has lost its 
hold on public favor, and point unmistakably where the sympathy of 
the people runs; that it is coming to be very generally regarded as a 
nuisance — which in truth it is, and the greatest of nuisances : nor 
would it be an extravagance to say, that it is fruitful of more mischief 
than all other nuisances united. 

Prohibitionists are charged with being revolutionary. But it is their 
opponents who are revolutionary. The advocates of prohibitory 
Nott. 






TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 277 

amelioration of the condition, and the elevation of the 
character of the beings on whose destiny it is in- 
tended to bear. 



liquor laws, seek to rid the community of a vast and intolerable evil, 
by peaceable and lawful means, and which are as old as the Common 
Law. This is reform ; not resolution. But they who seek to protect 
and perpetuate the traffic in intoxicating Liquors — to keep so vast a 
wrong, and so complicated a system of wrongs, in a community of men 
and women who abhor it, and rise to cast it off, as an infamy and a 
scourge — the attempt to keep society where it is, when its first and 
strongest instincts compel it to a point beyond — this is revolution, and 
the most unnatural and violent kind of revolution. 

Eleven years ago, we knew a student, at Union College, who sent 
a copy of these Lectures to his father, who was then engaged in liquor 
selling. He soon sent back word that he had read them, and was about 
to employ his capital in other business. Doubtless there are some such 
persons still remaining in the trade, whose hearts and consciences, if 
this volume were sent to them, would be similarly touched. We 
should be glad to have the experiment tried in the case of all the two 
hundred or two hundred and fifty thousand liquor sellers in the United 
States. 

If anything in the way of "moral suasion" can affect the hearts of 
the men who still deal in intoxicating liquors, it will be these powerful 
and searching appeals by Dr. Nott. For he seems to exhaust all the 
arts, not only of the orator, but the Christian orator. But it must not 
escape our notice, that all these 'same appliances, uniting the skill of 
the rhetorician and the zeal of the missionary, are equally proper to 
be used, and ought to be used, with the counterfeiter and the forger, 
the keeper of gambling-houses, and the horse thief. But while these 
pious efforts on the part of individuals cannot be too much applauded, 
society at large does not wait, and cannot wait, until these wrong-doers 
are personally reclaimed. The pains and the penalties of the prohibitory 
laws are resorted to in the case of lesser evils than liquor-selling ; and 
government cannot refuse to employ them in the case of the greater, 
without abandoning its primary functions, and resigning all pretensions 
to maintain social security. 



273' TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 

Before the eye of the philanthropist there is spread 
out one vast field of crime and misery, the admitted 
consequence of inebriation ; deliberate, customary, I 
had almost said fashionable inebriation. Evils so 
appalling require the immediate universal applica- 
tion of that only remedy. 

TOTAL ABSTINENCE. 

But be it remembered that they alone who can 
apply this remedy, are free, untrammeled, intelligent, 
moral agents ; as such agents they must be addressed ; 



To prove conclusively, that the author would not have any part of 
these Lectures quoted against the agitation for legislative prohibition, 
we close this note by quoting the following passage from an address 
delivered by the author, at the Annual Meeting of the New York State 
Temperance Society in Albany, on the 18th of January, 1856 : u It is 
in these public and long-established rendezvous of vice that the occa- 
sion is furnished and the temptation presented ; here the elements of 
death are collected, here are mingled, and here the fatal chalice that 
contains them is presented to unsuspecting and confiding guests, as 
containing an innocent, cheering and even healthful beverage ; and, 
by being so presented in the midst of boon companions, an appeal is 
made, guilefully made, to the kindly instincts and generous impulses of 
man's social nature, — an appeal which few long subject to its seductive 
influences are able to withstand. Merely to shut up these moral 
Golgothas, these shambles of the soul, would be a noble triumph. 
But how are these progressive triumphs to be accomplished, this final 
victory achieved? How? "By the force of public opinion — settled, 
decided opinion — and such public opinion embodied, and expressed in 
the form of authoritative public law — and thus embodied and express- 
ed as fast and as far as it is formed. 1 ' — (editor.) 



THE CHANGE HOW ATTAINED. 279 

addressed as agents who, in view of evidence and 
motives, are to form their own opinions and decide for 
themselves their own characters and course of con- 
duct; and hence, agents who can only be gained to 
abstinence by forming each for himself the high 
resolve and carrying out the same in action. The 
change in contemplation is a change on principle — 
a moral change, a voluntary change, a change to be 
effected by each individual on himself and by him- 
self; a rightful change — a change in which appetite 
is denied, reason enthroned, and homage paid to the 
behests of duty and the authority of truth, so that 
in the advocacy of this cause its friends are estopped 
from appealing to physical force, not only, but also 
from appealing to all wrong principles of even volun- 
tary action. 

It is easy to rail at the rum and even the w 7 ine 
seller, as well as the rum and wine drinker; to 
injure his business, to asperse his character, and to 
make him odious in community, and thus compel 
him, especially where our influence is controlling, to 
dissemble, while paying to our abhorred principles 
an external but reluctant homage. 

It is easy, perhaps natural, convinced as we are of 
the goodness of our cause, to do this. But is it kind, 
is it fraternal? especially, is it Christian? Have w r e 
then forgotten how much and how long God has borne 
with us ? See we not how long He bears with others ? 
How His sun shines and His showers fall even yet 
upon the wicked? 0! it was the disciples and not 
their Master who, when treated less urbanely than 



2S0 PRINCIPLES AND VOLUNTARY ACTION. 

was befitting, by a village of Samaritans, it was the 
disciples who proposed to call down fire from 
Heaven and consume that village: to* whom, re- 
buking their rashness, He said, "Ye know not what 
manner of spirit ye are of, for the Son of man is not 
come to destroy men's lives, but to save them." 

But though estopped from appealing to physical 
force, estopped from appealing to wrong principles, 
we are not estopped from appealing 

TO RIGHT PRINCIPLES AND VOLUNTARY ACTION. 

"I," said the Saviour of the world, "I, if I * 
lifted up, will draw all men unto me." 

The event has verified the prediction. It is not 
the terrors of Sinai that have driven, but the attrac- 
tives of Calvary which have drawn so many souls to 
Jesus. Now, as formerly, there is a charm in kind- 
ness, and to the powerless reformer, persuasion is still 
an arm of power. Let us then, in place of offending 
by our rudeness and repelling by our censure, endeavor 
to convince by our arguments, and conciliate by our 
entreaties, both the manufacturer and the vender as 
well as the consumer of intoxicating liquors. 

Abhorrent as the manufacture and sale, as a beve- 
rage, of intoxicating liquors may be, to the fully in- 
structed and confirmed advocates of total abstinence, 
it is still to be considered that these are occupations 
which, at no distant period, the prevalent, I had 
almost said the universal, usages of society called for; 
which law sanctioned and even religion itself was 
believed and is still believed by many to sanction; 



A SACRIFICE REQUIRED. 281 

occupations which even temperance men patronized 
and engaged in without compunction. Under these 
alleviating circumstances the capital of the manu- 
facturer and vender has to a considerable extent 
been invested and his habits formed, and he cannot 
now transfer the one. or change the other without 
inconvenience; perhaps not without sacrifice, per- 
haps not even without suffering. It is no easy 
thing for a man whose little all is thus invested, and 
who thereby obtains his daily bread, and who know r s 
not how otherwise to obtain it; it is no easy thing 
for such a man to gird himself up to the perform- 
ance of the painful duty to which our doctrines sum- 
mon him. On the contrary, it requires great mag- 
nanimity, great decision of character, and great self- 
sacrifice to do this. 

Think not, therefore, that those whose hard lot 
it is to breathe the air of the brewer's vats, or to 
barrel the liquid that flows from the distiller's still; 
or that those whose still harder lot it is, standing at 
the counter or the bar, to measure out by the gill to 
drinkers the drunkard's drink ; think not that these 
men are from the very nature of their profession 
greater sinners than other men. On the contrary, 
they are now what many of us, and without any change 
of moral character, once were. And many of them 
may, and doubtless will, without any change of 
moral character, become what we now are. Even 
now they have the same hopes and fears and 
sympathies, the same love of life and liberty and 
country and kindred and of man, as other men have. 



2S2 MODERATE AND CUSTOMARY DRINKING. 

Among them may be found those who would shrink 
from crime with as instinctive a shuddering, look 
on misery with as tender an eye, and stretch forth 
for its relief as willing an arm, as any among our- 
selves ; in one word, there may be found among 
them, as among us, men who fear God and in other 
respects work righteousness: but owing to their 
education or occupation, to their misapplied experi- 
ence, to their ignorance of facts, to the influence of 
habit, to the force of prejudice, or perhaps to our 
own unchristian advocacy of the cause itself; our 
unwarranted assu-mptions, our invidious slanders, 
our want of charity, our want of candor or fidelity; 
owing to these or other similar causes, they have 
not yet learned what we, though placed in more 
favorable circumstances, and enjoying greater light, 
were slow to learn (not that drunkenness is at once 
a crime, a curse and a dishonor, but) 

That drunkenness, by a necessity of nature, is produced 
by drinking; moderate, customary, reputable 
drinking; and that such is the settled, unchanging 
order of Providence; and hence the frequent, fright- 
ful, loathsome manifestation of this abhorred malady, 
among, and only among temperate drinkers, so called ; 
that is, among those who have the rashness, the 
temerity, I had almost said the impiety, in the face 
of this settled order of God's unchanging providence, 
to subject the living fibre of their own organism to 
the corrosive action of intoxicating poisons ; poisons 
furnished by the Author of all good for medicine, 



VICTIMS NEVER TEETOTALERS. 283 

not for aliment — and not intended, and declared by the 
effects they produce not intended, for habitual use. 

This discovery is not fancy but fact; an ascertained, 
palpable, indubitable fact, at the knowledge of which 
we have arrived by collating the data furnished during 
other ages and in other countries, and comparing the 
same with the state of things existing in our own; 
*in the prosecution of which inquiry we have visited 
the localities where intoxicating liquors are manu- 
factured, and sold, and drank. We have marked their 
effect in the hut of ignorance, and the parlor of 
fashion ; we have actually taken the dimensions of 
the miseries they have occasioned, and summed up 
the number of the dead which they have slain ; and 
while doing this, we have been surprised to learn, 
that drunkenness was not, as we had once supposed, 
a calamity resulting from some single, sudden, over- 
whelming indiscretion, or at most from some few 
flagrant, w r anton cases of criminal indulgence, into 
which men of every class were liable to be surprised ; 
but that it was a calamity confined to a single class, 
the moderate drinking class ; that the victims were 
n§ver " teetotalers," but always moderate drinkers, 
and the process always moderate drinking — a process 
not sudden, but gradual, beginning when drinking 
began: continuing with its continuance : and making 
its silent, undiscovered, unsuspected advance, covertly 
and without sign of progress or note of warning; 
till suddenly friends and kindred are awakened to 
the knowledge of the alarming truth, that, seduced 



2S4 SELF-DENIAL AND SACRIFICE REQUIRED. 

by moderate drinking into drunkenness, a father, a 
son or a brother lies in ruins. 

And having discovered this truth, to wit, that 
drinking, I mean temperate drinking, is what makes 
drunkards; a truth momentous indeed, and big with 
everlasting consequence — but a truth hid for ages — 
and still hid from numbers; having discovered this 
truth, we hasten to announce it both to the vender 
and the drinker; to announce it, not in the language 
of rebuke and crimination, but in that of Heaven's 
own mercy — saying, as an Apostle said, " Brethren, 
I wot that through ignorance ye have done this, as 
did also your rulers," who have licensed and by 
licensing sanctioned the doing. And full well we 
know that even G-od winketh at those bygone days 
of ignorance, though now, and far as the light 
shineth, commandeth all men everywhere to repent. 

That self-denials and sacrifices will be required, in 
effecting that change in our social habits which is 
called for by this discovery of the deleterious effects 
of even the moderate use of intoxicating liquors on 
the human constitution, must be admitted. And it 
must also be admitted that, so far as sacrifices are 
concerned, manufacturers and venders will be the 
chief, I had almost said, the only sufferers. Still it 
must be recollected that these are sacrifices that 
patriotism as well as religion sanctions; and such 
too as are elsewhere called for, whenever in this 
onward movement of society any new and valuable 
improvement is introduced. Not a canal can be 
excavated, a railroad constructed, a steamboat started, 



INN-KEEPERS GROCERS EXHORTED. 2S5 

or even a spinning jenny or a power loom put in mo- 
tion, without impairing the fortune of some and taking 
away the means of procuring bread from others. 

And yet these partial temporary evils are sub- 
mitted to, and often without a murmur, even by the 
sufferers, cheered as they are by the prospect of 
public, enduring, superabounding good. 

But never was the endurance of private tempo- 
rary evils encouraged by the promise of requital in 
the bestowment of such public enduring and super- 
abounding good as in the case before us. 

! could the employment of capital, and the 
consumption of provisions, and the waste of labor, 
in the manufacture of intoxicating liquors, be pre- 
vented ; and could the moral and physical energy, 
now paralyzed by their use, be directed to the pro- 
duction of comforts, how different would be the 
condition of all classes — especially of the laboring 
poor, who now, small as their earnings are, eagerly 
purchase, and unheedingly press to their lips, that 
cup which is ever, to those who taste of it, the cup 
of affliction — often even the cup of death ! 

Brethren, inn-keepers, grocers, w T hose business it 
has been to sell to drinkers the drunkard's drink, 
has it never occurred to your minds that the liquors 
dispensed were destined, though unseen by you, to 
blanch some glow of health, to wither some blossom 
of hope, to disturb some asylum of peace, to pollute 
some sanctuary of innocence, or plant gratuitous, 
perhaps enduring misery, in some bosom of joy? Have 
you never in imagination followed the wretched 



2S6 CONSIDER THESE THINGS. 

inebriate whose glass you have poured out, or whose 
jug or bottle you have filled; have you never in im- 
agination followed him to his unblessed and comfort- 
less abode ? Have you never mentally witnessed the 
faded cheek and tearful eye of his broken-hearted 
wife ; never witnessed the wistful look and stifled cry 
of his terror-stricken children, waiting at night-fall 
his dreaded return; and marked the thrill of horror 
which the approaching sound of his footsteps sent 
across their bosoms? Have you never in thought 
marked his rude entrance, his ferocious look, his 
savage yell, and that demoniac phrenzy, under the 
influence of which, father, husband as he w r as, he 
drove both wife and children forth, exposed to the 
wintry blast and the peltings of the pitiless storm ; 
or, denying them even this refuge, how he has smitten 
them both to the earth beneath his murderous arm? 

If you have never heretofore considered these 
things, will you not now consider them, and give up an 
occupation so subversive of virtue, so conducive to 
crime, so productive of misery ? You would not will- 
ingly, even though it were desired, you would not di- 
rectly furnish your customers with pauperism, in- 
sanity, crime, disease and death; why then supply 
them with what produces these, and more than these ; 
more of misery than eye hath seen, or ear heard, or 
than it hath entered into the heart of man to conceive? 

But the sale of liquors is your employment, and it 
furnishes you and yours subsistence. Be it so ; still, 
is it a desirable employment? Are you willing to 
live, and that your family should live, on the miseries 



RELINQUISHING THE TRAFFIC, 287 

endured, and the crimes committed by others, m 
consequence of poisons by you dispensed? Arc you 
willing to receive and treasure up the profits, which 
arise from the widow's tears, the orphan's cries, the 
maniac's loss of reason, the convict's loss of liberty, 
and the suicide's loss of life? Are yon willing that 
death should find yon still corrupting youl h, dishonor- 
ing ;i< r e, and sending waste and want and battle into 
the families of the poor; and disgrace, disease and 
death into those of the rich ; and subverting, in both, 
the course of nature, so that in the habitations of 
maternal kindness, and under I he tutelage of paternal 
virtue, in place of wise and good and useful men, 
debauchees and paupers and criminals are reared 
up? Are you willing death should find you still pre- 
paring victims for the poor-house and prison-house 
and grave-yard? 

And ye, men of fortune, manufacturers, importers, 
wholesale dealers, will you not for the sake of the 
young, the old, the rich, the poor, (he happy, the 
miserable, in one word, for flic sake of our common 
humanity, in all tjie states and forms in which it is 
presented, will you not shut up your distilleries, 
countermand your orders, and announce the heaven- 
approved resolution, never hereafter to do aught to 
swell the issue of these waters of woe and death, 
with which this young republic is already flooded? 

Have you never thought, as you rolled out and 
delivered to the purchaser his cask, have you never 
thought how many mothers must mourn, how many 
wives suffer, how many children must supplicate; 



2S8 INTEMPERANCE A MORAL BLIGHT. 

how many men of virtue must be corrupted, men 
of honor debased, and of intelligence demented, by 
partaking of that fatal poison, dispensed from you, 
seller, and to be paid for as per invoice? 

Have you never thought what a moral blight there 
was to be set abroad over that hamlet or village, 
where the vile disease and crime-producing contents 
of that cask, drained to its dregs, were to be palmed, 
under the guise of a healthful beverage, on the 
orderly, uninformed and unsuspecting inhabitants 
thereof? In your own poor-houses and prison- 
houses and grave-yards, in the beggars that frequent 
the city, in the loafers that infest the suburbs, and in 
the shop-lifters and incendiaries so common in both, 
you see something, indeed, but not a tithe of the 
whole evils which the traffic in these accursed 
liquors produces, sent forth, in quantities, as they are, 
along those extended channels that connect the 
far-off lakes with the ocean — along the no less ex- 
tended sea-board, and up the great valley of the 
west, to every islet and glen, over every railroad or 
other avenue, to every inland village or shanty or 
cabin, inflicting everywhere the same miseries in-, 
flicted in the city from whence this element of evil 
was sent abroad — impairing the health, diminishing 
the vigor, and sowing the seeds of death in the con- 
stitution of the hardy laborer in the field, the ruddy 
housewife in the family, and the pale infant in the 
cradle — sharpening the avarice of the trader, in- 
flaming the vengeance of the natives, raising the war 
cry amid the hunting grounds of the wilderness, and 



EVILS PRODUCED BY LIQUOE. 289 

rendering savage life itself less secure and more 
comfortless, to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, 
and even the regions that lie beyond them. 

But it were vain to attempt to portray the se- 
verity or take the dimensions of the evils produced 
by a single cask of intoxicating liquors, inconsider- 
ately sent forth from the warehouse of the sober, 
moral, and religious dealer, to the far-off west, or 
perhaps to some other continent, or to the islands of 
some distant sea, there to execute unseen, and on 
beings unknown, its work of death — thereto sadden 
the missionary, to " demonize" the savage, and cause 
the hopeful convert to apostatize from the faith he 
had professed. These are evils, however, which God 
registers in the book of his remembrance, and which 
the day of judgment will bring to light; as well as 
those other evils nearer home of which we have 
already spoken, and, would time permit, might still 
farther speak; for at home and abroad, in the city 
and country, in the solitude and by the way side, it 
is not blessings, but curses, that the venders of 
intoxicating liquors dispense to their customers. 

Said a venerable grocer, looking along a street in 
which in early life he had planted himself — " That 
street has twice changed most of its inhabitants since 
I commenced business in it; and the present occu- 
pants, untaught by the fate of their predecessors, 
are drinking themselves to death as speedily as prac- 
ticable." "I admit," said another grocer, "that 
what you say is true ; we know we sell poison; all 
the world know this ; mankind have acquired a taste 
13 



290 THE WINE DEALER'S WIFE, 

for poison, and will have it ; we merely administer 
to that taste, and if people will kill themselves, it 
is their own, and not our fault." 

A wine dealer's wife, in the commercial capital of 
the State, whose conscience was ill at ease in relation 
to the traffic in intoxicating liquors, availing herself 
of an auspicious moment, said to her husband, " I do 
not like your selling liquor ; it seems to me to be a 
bad business ; you do not, I suppose, make more than 
one or two hundred dollars a year by it, and I should 
be very much rejoiced if you would give it up." "I 
know," answered her husband, " as well as you do, 
that it is a bad business ; I should be as glad to give 
it up as you would be to have me, and if I did not 
make more than one, or two, or even five hundred 
dollars a year by it, I would give it up." "How 
much, then," inquired his wife, "do you make?" 
" Why," replied her husband, "I make from two to 
three thousand dollars a year, an amount quite too 
large to be relinquished." "What you say," she 
rejoined, "brings to my mind the remarks of a lecturer 
I once heard, who having repeated what Walpole 
said in relation to every man having his price in 
politics, added that it was much the same in religion. 
Satan, continued he, is a broker — not a wheat, or cot- 
ton, or money broker, but a soul broker : some can be 
procured to labor in his service for a hundred, some 
for a thousand, and some for ten thousand dollars a 
year. The price at which you estimate your soul, I 
see, is three thousand dollars a year. My dear hus- 
band, look you well to it — to me it seems that even 

KOTT. 



INCIDENT DURING THE CHOLERA SEASON. 291 

three thousand dollars a year is a paltry price for that 
which is truly priceless." 

On the mind of that husband sudden conviction 
flashed; and liberal as was his portion in those 
rewards of unrighteousness which Satan proffered; 
he resolved, and avowed the resolution, to receive it 
no longer. 

Dealer in these disguised poisons, how stands this 
profit and loss account with you ? Have you summed 
up the items and ascertained the total to be by you 
received in exchange for that which " angels dare not 
bid for, and worlds want wealth to buy? " 

Not without reason did the poet say, in reference 
to the debasing influence of sinful mercenary pur- 
suits — 

11 How low the wretches stoop ! how deep they plunge 
In mire and dirt : they drudge aud sweat and creep 
Through every fen, for vile contaminating trash. 
Since prone in thought their nature is their shame ; 
And they should blush, their forehead meets the skies." 

In an address at a late temperance anniversary, 
said a speaker : " During the cholera season there 
came into my office in New-York, one forenoon, a 
grocer with whom I had been acquainted, and said 
with much agitation, I am going to give up selling 
spirituous liquors. Why? said I. Because, rejoined 
he, there came into my store this morning, at a very 
early hour, a young man, who, looking up to the 
brandy bottle which stood upon the shelf, exclaimed, 
with a fearful oath, Come down! come down! 
You killed my grandfather — you killed my father ■ 



992 grocer's narrative. 

come down now, and kill me. What that young 
man said, continued the grocer, was but too true. 
His grandfather died a drunkard, and with liquor 
obtained at my store. His father died a drunkard, 
and with liquor obtained at my store. Both drank 
from the same bottle, and both were dead ; both the 
grandfather and father ; and now the son had come 
to claim the sad privilege of drinking from the same 
bottle, and dying as his grandfather and father had 
died. I looked at that young man — I thought of 
the past, and it seemed as if the way to hell from 
my store was very short — that I could, from behind 
the counter where I stood, look quite into it; I felt 
that the business of selling liquor was a bad busi- 
ness, and I made up my mind to quit it." 

And, true to his purpose, he did so — and before 
the sun went down every keg and decanter was 
removed from his premises to return to it no more. 
A blessing followed that decisive act ; and having 
refused any longer to receive, the wages of unright- 
eousness, he has enjoyed the visitation of the Spirit, 
and been made, and his family have been made, par- 
takers in the purer, higher, holier pleasures of religion. 
Inn-keepers, grocers, dispensers, from the counter or 
the bar room, of the same disguised poison, you 
have heard this brief but affecting narrative; and 
having heard it, I ask, how does your experience tally 
with the proclaimed experience of your fellow-laborer 
in that common occupation in which you have been 
engaged ? Have your brandy bottles, or beer casks, 



DEALER ADDRESSED. 293 

or rum jugs, been more or less effective than his in 
this work of death ? 

Can you recall the names, or sum up the number, 
of those customers of yours, who, reeling one by one, 
in succession, from your dispensaries of sin and suffer- 
ing, have disappeared and sunk down to the abodes 
of death ? Is the way longer from your counter or 
your barroom to the grave yard, or even to that hell 
beyond it, than it was from his ? Could you, in fact, 
look into the latter as he did in fancy — what think 
you would be the discoveries such a vision would 
unfold ? Could you see the horror-stricken counte- 
nances, could you hear the unceasing wail of those to 
whom, standing at your counter or your bar, you 
have meted out by measure, and for pay, this well 
known element of death — even of the second death 
— could you do this, what would your emotions be 
as your eye met theirs who are now suffering in hell, 
the torments brought upon them by indulging in 
those appetites to which on earth it was your un- 
; worthy and cruel office to have ministered ? 

And are you willing that death should find you to 

' the last thus occupied ? Are you willing to go direct 

' from the rum or beer selling bar to the bar of God's 

, righteous retribution ? Having posted your books and 

made out your bills for all the poisons you have ever 

dispensed — the families you have made wretched — 

■ the individuals you have brutalized, and the criminals 

you have sent prematurely and uncalled for to meet 

their eternal doom ; having posted your books and 

, made out your bills for all these services, which in 



294 DEALER ADDRESSED. 

your day and generation you have rendered man- 
kind, are you willing to present this summary to your 
final Judge and abide the issue ? Think you that He 
who bestowed your talents and fixed the bounds of 
your habitation, saying, " Creature of my beneficence 
and my power, occupy till I come;" think you that 
He, having examined these doings of yours, the 
motives from which they sprung, and the results to 
which they led, will add, " Well done, good and 
faithful servant, thou hast been faithful over a few 
things, I will make thee ruler over many things, 
enter thou into the joy of thy Lord ? " 

If not, then change your position while you may, 
and like that repentant grocer of whom you have 
heard, form the high resolve to quit at once, and at 
whatever sacrifice, a servitude so debasing, and to 
spend the remainder of your stay on earth in some 
blameless, if not higher and holier occupation. 



■I 



Isaiah, v., 11., 12, 22. 

With sensuality, ^ Isaiah, xxii., 13, 

Isaiah, lvi., 12. 

With transgression, , Hab., ii., 5. 

With woe, _ „ Isaiah, xxviii., 1, also 7. 

With prohibition to Nazarites, Num., vi., 3. 

" " to the mother of Sampson, Jud., xiii., 4, 7, 14. 

" " to the mother of Samuel, 1 Sam., i., 14, 15.. 

M " to the Rechabites, Jer., xxxv., 6, 7, 8. 

" " to the priests, Lev., x. ? 9. 

also Ezekiel, xliv., 21. 

With reproof to kings, Prov., xxxi,, 4. 

With temptations to Nazarites , Amos, ii., 12. 

With temptation to Rechabites, Jer., xxxv., 2, 5. 

With refusal by Rechabites, Jer., xxxv., 6, 8, 16. 

With refusal by Daniel, Dan., i., 5, 8, 16. 

also Dan., x., 3. 

With punishment, _. Psalms, lxxv., 8, 

With madness, Jer., xli., 7, 



LECTUKE No. XL 



RECAPITULATION— GENERAL APPEAL IN 
BEHALF OF TEMPERANCE. 

Appeal to Parents — To Youth — To Women — Conclusion. 

In the preceding lectures, we have shown that a kind 
of wine has existed from great antiquity, which was 
injurious to health and subversive of morals ; that 
these evils, since the introduction of distillation, 
have been greatly increased ; that half the lunacy, 
three-fourths of the pauperism, and five-sixths of the 
crime with which the nation is visited, is owing to 
intemperance ; that there are believed to be five hun- 
dred thousand drunkards in the republic, and that 
thousands die of drunkenness annually. We have 
also shown that drunkenness results from moderate 
drinking, and that drunkenness must continue, by a 
necessity of nature, as long as habitual temperate 
drinking is continued ; that it is not the drinking of 
water or milk, or any other necessary or nutritive 
beverage, but of intoxicating liquors only, that pro- 
duces drunkenness ; that as the existing system of 
moderate drinking occasions all the drunkenness that 
exists, so that system must be abandoned, or its ex- 

JSTOTT. 



296 WHAT HAS BEEN SHOWN. 

pense in muscle and sinew and mind, provided for by 
this, and all future generations ; that even moderate 
drinking is now more dangerous than formerly, be- 
cause intoxicating drinks are more deadly — to the 
poison of alcohol, generated by fermentation, other 
poison having been added by drugging, and that alike 
to intoxicating liquors,whether fermented or distilled. 
We have enumerated the kinds of poison made use 
of in the products of the still and of the brew-house, 
and met the objection that the use of wine was sanc- 
tioned by the Bible, by showing that there were differ- 
ent kinds of wine, some of which were good and some 
bad, and that the former only were commended in the 
Bible ; that though it were allowable to use pure 
wines in Palestine, it would not follow that it was 
allowable to use mixed wines here, where intenser 
poisons exist, and where the use of wine leads to the 
use of brandy, and the use of brandy to drunkenness : 

We have shown that even in Palestine it was good 
not to drink wine, when it caused a brother to offend, 
and therefore not good elsewhere, and especially here, 
and at the present time, when the tremendous evils 
of intemperance in some classes of community render 
total abstinence befitting in all classes, in conformity 
to that great law of love which Jesus Christ promul- 
gated, and in conformity to which the apostles of 
Jesus Christ acted, and the disciples of Jesus Christ 
are bound to act. 

We have shown that the books of Nature and Eeve- 
lation both proceeded from God, and both contain, 
though with unequal degrees of clearness, an expres- 



WHO HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED. 297 

sion of his will ; that the import of the one is disco- 
vered by reading and meditation, of the other by 
observation and experiment ; that in this latter oracle 
mankind are distinctly taug B ht, that aliments restore 
the waste of the human organism, but that stimulants 
impair the sensibility on which they operate, and 
hence that the latter are not intended for habitual 
use, that they who so use intoxicating liquors violate 
an established^law of nature, and that the drunken- 
ness, disease and death, which result from such use, 
are the penalty which follows, by the appointment 
ofG-od, the violation of that law; that God wills the 
happiness of his creatures, and when the authority of 
the Bible is plead in behalf of any usage that leads to 
misery, it may be known that the Bible is plead in 
error in behalf of such usage ; that in the present in- 
stance, and so far as the wines of commerce are con- 
cerned, to appeal to the Bible as authority, is absurd; 
that the Bible knows nothing and teaches nothing 
directly, in relation to these wines of commerce, — 
the same being either a brandied or drugged article, 
never in use in Palestine ; that in relation to these 
spurious articles the book of nature must alone be 
consulted, and that being consulted, their condem- 
nation will be found on many a page, inscribedjn 
characters of wrath. 

In the view of these and other truths, we have ad- 
dressed ourselves to the manufacturer and vender of 
these legalized poisons ; and there are yet others to 
whom, in the view of the same truths, we would, in 
conclusion, address ourselves 
13* 



298 PARENTS ADDRESSED. 

Fathers, mothers, heads of families, if not prepared 
at this late hour to change j^our mode of life, are you 
not prepared to encourage the young, particularly 
your children, to change theirs ? Act as you may, 
yourselves, do you not desire that they should act 
the part of safety ? Can you not tell them, and truly 
tell them, that our manner of life is attended with 
less peril than your own ? Can you not tell them, 
and truly tell them, that however innocent the use 
even of pure wine may be, in the estimation of those 
who use it, that its use in health is never necessary ; 
that excess is always injurious, and that in the habi- 
tual use of even such wine there is always danger of 
excess; that of the brandied and otherwise adulte- 
rated wines in use, it cannot be said, in whatever 
quantity, that they are innocent ; that the tempta- 
tion to adulterate is very great, detection very diffi- 
cult, and that entire safety is to be found only in 
total abstinence? Can j-ou not truly tell them this? 
Will you not tell them this ? And having told them, 
should they, in obedience to your counsel, relinquish 
at once the use of all intoxicating liquors, w r ould 
their present condition, you yourselves being judges, 
would their present condition be less secure, or their 
future prospects less full of promise, on that account ? 
Or would the remembrance, that the stand they took 
was taken at your bidding, either awaken in your 
bosoms misgivings now, or regrets hereafter? Espe- 
cially, w T ould it do this as life declines, and you 
approach your final dissolution and last account ? 
Then, w T hen standing on the verge of that narrow 



CHILDREN ADDRESSED. 299 

isthmus, which separates the future from the past, 
and connects eternity with time ; then, when casting 
the last lingering look back upon that world to 
which you are about to bid adieu forever, will the 
thought that you are to leave behind you a family 
trained to temperance not only, but pledged also to 
total abstinence, will that thought then, think you, 
plant one thorn in the pillow of sickness, or add one 
pang to the agonies of death ? ! no, it is not this 
thought, but the thought of dying and leaving be- 
hind a family of profligate children, to nurture other 
children no less profligate, in their turn to nurture 
others — thus transmitting guilt and misery to a re- 
mote posterity ; it is this thought, and thoughts like 
this, in connection with another thought, suggested 
by those awful words, "For I, the Lord thy God, 
am a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers 
upon the children, to the third and fourth generation, 
of them that hate me ; " — it is thoughts like these, 
and not the thought of leaving behind a family, 
pledged to total abstinence, that will give to life's 
last act a sadder coloring, and man's last hour a den- 
ser darkness. Between these two conditions of the 
dying, if held within our offer, who of us would 
hesitate ? 

Ye children of moderate drinking parents ; children 
of so many hopes, and solicitudes and prayers ; the 
sin of drunkenness apart, the innocence of abstinence 
apart, here are two classes of men, and two plans of 
life, each proffered to your approbation, and submit- 
ted for your choice : The one class use intoxi- 

NOTT. 



300 THE YOUTH ADDRESSED. 

eating liquor, moderately, indeed, still they use in- 
toxicating liquor in some or many of its forms ; the 
other class use it in none of them : The one class, in 
consequence of such use of intoxicating liquor, fur- 
nish all the drunkenness, three- fourths of all the 
pauperism and five-sixths of all the crime, under the 
accumulating and accumulated weight of which our 
country already groans. Yes, in consequence of 
such restricted use of intoxicating liquors, the one 
class pays an annual tribute in muscle and sinew, in 
intellect aud virtue, ay, in the souls of men; a 
mighty tribute, embodied in the persons of inebriates, 
taken from the ranks of temperate drinkers and de- 
livered over to the jail, the mad-house, the house of 
correction, and even the house of silence ! 

The other class pays no such tribute ; no, nor even 
a portion of it. The other burthens of community 
they share indeed, in common with their brethren ; a 
portion of their earnings goes even to provide and 
furnish those abodes of wo and death, which intoxi- 
cating liquors crowd with inmates ; but the inmates 
themselves are all, all trained in the society, in- 
structed in the maxims, moulded by the customs, 
and finally delivered up from the ranks of the oppo- 
site party— the moderate drinking party. 

Now, beloved youth, which of these two modes of 
life will you adopt? To which of these two classes 
will you attach yourselves ? Which think you is the 
safest, which most noble, patriotic, Christian? In one 
word, which will ensure the purest bliss on earth, and 
afford the fairest prospect of admission into heaven ? 



DESOLATION OF THE INEBRIATE. 301 

For* the mere privilege of using intoxicating liquors 
moderately, are you willing to contribute your pro- 
portion annually to people the poor-house, the prison- 
house and the grave-yard ? For such a privilege, are 
you willing to give up to death, or even to delirium 
tremens, a parent this year, a wife, a child or brother 
or sister the next, and the year thereafter a friend or 
a neighbor? Are you willing to do this, and having 
done it, are you further willing, as a consequence, 
to hear the mothers', the wives', the widows', and 
the orphans' waitings, on account of miseries inflicted 
by a system deliberately adopted by your choice, sus- 
tained by your example, and perpetuated by your in- 
fluence? Nor to hear alone; are you willing to see 
also the beggar's rags, the convict's fetters, and those 
other and more hideous forms of guilt and misery, 
the product of intemperance, which liken men to 
demons and earth to hell? 

That frightful outward desolation, apparent in the 
person and the home of the inebriate, is but an em- 
blem of a still more frightful inward desolation. The 
comfortless abode, the sorrow-stricken family, the 
tattered garments, the palsied tread, the ghastly 
countenance, and loathsome aspect, of the habitual 
brutal drunkard, fill us with abhorrence. We shun 
his presence, and shrink instinctively from his pol- 
luting touch. But what are all these sad items, 
which effect the outer man only, in comparison with 
the blighted hopes, the withered intellect, the debased 
propensities, the brutal appetites, the demoniac 
passions, the defiled conscience ; in one word, in 



302 BE NOT DECEIVED. 

comparison with the sadder moral items which com- 
plete the frightful spectacle of a soul in ruins ; a soul 
deserted of God, possessed by demons, and from 
which the last lineaments of its Maker's image have 
been utterly effaced ; a soul scathed and. riven, and 
standing forth already, as it w r ill hereafter stand forth, 
frightful amid its ruins, a monument of wrath, and a 
warning to the universe 

Be not deceived, nor fear to take the dimensions 
of the evils that threaten, or to look that destroyer 
in the face, which you are about to arm against your- 
selves. Not the solid rock withstands forever the 
touch of water even, much less the living fibre that 
of alcohol, or those other and intenser poisons min- 
gled with it, in those inebriating liquors of which a 
moiety of the nation drinks. The habitual use of 
such liquors in small quantities prepares the way for 
their use in larger quantities, and yet larger quanti- 
ties progressively, till inebriation is produced. Such 
is the constitution of nature; it is preposterous, 
therefore, to calculate upon exemption. Exceptions 
indeed there may be ; but they are exceptions mere- 
ly. The rule is otherwise. If you live an habitual 
drinker of such liquors, you ought to calculate to 
die a confirmed drunkard : and that your children, 
and your children's children, should they follow your 
example, will die confirmed drunkards also. And if 
life shall be prolonged to them, and they so live, 
they will so die, unless the course of nature shall be 
changed. 



STOP WHILE YOU MAY. 303 

In the view of these facts and arguments which the 
subject before you presents, make up your minds, 
make up your minds deliberately, and having done 
so, say whether you are willing to take along with 
the habitual moderate use of intoxicating liquors, as 
bought and sold, and drank among us, the appalling 
consequences that must result therefrom. Are you 
willing to do this ? and if you are not, stop, — stop 
while you may, and where you can. In this descent 
to Hades there is no half-way house, no central rest- 
ing place. The movement once commenced is ever 
onward and downward. The thirst created is quench- 
less, the appetite induced insatiable. You may not 
live to complete the process — but this know, that 
it is naturally progressive, and that with every suc- 
cessive sip from the fatal chalice, it advances, imper- 
ceptibly inde-ed, still it advances toward completion. 
Yon demented sot, once a moderate drinker, occu- 
pied the ground you now occupy, and looked clown 
on former sots, as you, a moderate drinker, now look 
down on him, and as future moderate drinkers may 
yet look down on you, and wonder ; 

"Facilis decensus averni." 

Let it never be forgotten that we are social beings. 
No man liveth to himself; on the contrary, grouped 
together in various ways, each acts, and is acted on 
by others. Though living at a distance of so many 
generations, we feel even yet, and in its strength, the 
effects of the first transgression. Now, as formerly, 
it is the nature of vice, as well as virtue, to extend and 



304 WOMEN ADDRESSED 

perpetuate itself. Now, as formerly, the existing 
generation is giving the impress of its character to 
the generation which is to follow it — and now, as 
formerly, parents are by their conduct and their 
counsel, either weaving crowns to signalize their 
offspring in the Heavens, or forging chains to be 
worn by them in hell. 

Hearer, time is on the wing ; death is at hand ; act 
now, therefore, the part that you will in that hour 
* approve, and reprobate the conduct you will then 
condemn. 

It has not been usual for the speaker, as it has for 
some others, to bespeak the influence of those who 
constitute the most numerous, as well as most effi- 
cient part of almost every assembly, where self-de- 
nials are called for, or questions of practical duty 
discussed. And yet, no one is more indebted than 
myself to the kind of influence in question. 

Under God, I owe my early education, nay, all that 
I have been, or am, to the counsel and the tutelage 
of a pious mother. It was, peace to her sainted 
spirit, it was her monitory voice that first taught my 
young heart to feel that there was danger in the in- 
toxicating cup, and that safety lay in abstinence. 

And as no one is more indebted than myself to the 
kind of influence in question, so no one more fully 
realizes how decisively it bears upon the destinies of 
others. 

Full well I know, that by woman came the 
apostacy of Adam, and by woman the recovery 
through Jesus. It was a woman that imbued the 



CELEBRATED WOMEN. 305 

mind and formed the character of Moses, Israel's 
deliverer — it was a woman that led the choir, and 
gave back the response of that triumphal procession, 
which went forth to celebrate with timbrels, on the 
banks of the Red Sea, the overthrow of Pharaoh — 
it was a woman that put Sisera to flight, that com- 
posed the song of Deborah and Barak, the son of 
Abinoam, and judged in righteousness, for years, the 
tribes of Israel — it was a woman that defeated the 
wicked counsels of Hainan, delivered righteous 
Mordecai, and saved a whole people from utter de- 
solation. 

And not now to speak of Semiramis at Babylon, 
of Catherine of Bussia, or of those Queens of England, 
whose joyous reign constitute the brightest periods 
of British history, or of her, the young and lovely, 
the patron of learning and morals, who now adorns 
the throne of the sea-girt Isles ; not now to speak 
of these, there are others of more sacred character, 
of whom it were admissable even now to speak. 

The sceptre of empire is not the sceptre that best 
befits the hand of woman ; nor is the field of carnage 
her field of glory. Home, sweet home is her theatre 
of action, her pedestal of beauty, and throne of 
power. Or if seen abroad, she is seen to the best 
advantage, when on errands of love, and wearing 
her robe of mercy. 

It was not woman who slept during the agonies 
of Gethsemane ; it was not woman who denied her 
Lord at the palace of Caiaphas ; it was not woman 
who deserted his cross on the hill of Calvary. But 



i 






CHARACTER OF WOMAN. 



i was woman that dared to testify her respect for 
h-is corpse, that procured spices for embalming it, 
and that was found last at night, and first in the 
morning, at his sepulchre. Time has neither im- 
paired her kindness, shaken her constancy, or 
changed her character. 

Now, as formerly, she is most ready to enter, and 
most reluctant to leave, the abode of misery. Now, 
as formerly, it is her office, and well it has been sus- 
tained, to stay the fainting head, wipe from the dim 
eye the tear of anguish, and from the cold forehead 
the dew of death. 

This is not unmerited praise. I have too much 
respect for the character of woman, to use, even else- 
where, the language of adulation, and too much self- 
respect to use such language here. I would not, if 
I could, persuade those of the sex who hear me, to 
become the public, clamorous advocates of even tem- 
perance. It is the influence of their declared ap- 
probation ; of their open, willing, visible example, 
enforced by that soft, persuasive, colloquial elo- 
quence, which, in some hallowed retirement and 
chosen moments, exerts such controlling influence 
over the hard, cold heart of man, especially over a 
husband's, a son's, or a brother's heart ; it is this in- 
fluence which we need ;< — an influence chiefly known 
by the gradual, kindly transformation of character it 
produces, and which, in its benign effects, may be 
compared to the noiseless, balmy influence of Spring, 
shedding, as it silently advances, renovation over 
every hill, and dale, and glen, and islet, and changing, 






THE EMPIRE OF WOMAN. 307 

throughout the whole region of animated nature, 
Winter's rugged and unsightly forms, into the forms 
of vernal loveliness and beauty. 

No, I repeat it, I would not, if I could, persuade 
those of the sex who hear me, to become the public, 
clamorous advocates of temperance. It is not yours 
to wield the club of Hercules or bend Achilles' bow. 
But, though it is not, still you have a heaven-ap- 
pointed armour, as well as a heaven-approved theatre 
of action. The look of tenderness, the eye of com- 
passion, the lip of entreaty, are yours ; and yours, 
too, are the decisions of taste, and yours the omni- 
potence of fashion. You can therefore — I speak of 
those who have been the favorites of fortune, and 
who occupy the high places of society, — you can 
change the terms of social intercourse and alter the 
current opinions of community. You can remove, 
at once and forever, temptation from the saloon, the 
drawing-room and the dining-table. This is your 
empire, the empire over which God and the usages 
of mankind have given you dominion. Here, within 
these limits, and without transgressing that modesty 
which is heaven's own gift and woman's brightest 
ornament, you may exert a benign and kindly but 
mighty influence. Here you have but to speak the 
word, and one chief source of the mother's, the 
wives', and the widow's sorrows, will, throughout 
the circle in which you move, be dried up forever. 
Nor, throughout that circle only. The families 
around you and beneath you will feel the influence 
of your example, descending on them in blessings 

NOTT. 



308 A MIGHT? TRIUMPH. 

like the dews of Heaven that descend on the moun- 
tains of Zion ; and drunkenness, loathsome, brutal 
drunkenness, driven by the moral power of your de- 
cision, from all the abodes of reputable society, will 
be compelled to exist, if it exist at all, only among 
those vulgar and ragged wretches, who, shuning the 
society of woman, herd together in the bar-room, the 
oyster cellar and the groggery. 

This, indeed, were a mighty triumph, and this, at 
least, you can achieve. Why, then, should less than 
this be achieved ? To purify the conscience, to bind 
up the broken-hearted, to remove temptation from 
the young, to minister consolation to the aged, and 
kindle joy in every bosom throughout her appointed 
theatre of action, befits alike a woman's and a 
mother's agency, — and since God has put it in your 
power to do so much, are you willing to be respons- 
ible for the consequences of leaving it undone ? 

Are you willing to see this tide of wo and death, 
whose flow you might arrest, roll onward by you to 
posterity, increasing as it rolls forever? 

O ! no, you are not, I am sure you are not; and 
if not, then, ere you leave these altars, lift up your 
heart to God, and, in his strength, form the high 
resolve to purify from drunkenness this city. And, 
however elsewhere others may hesitate, and waver, 
and defer, and temporize, take you the open, noble 
stand of abstinence ; and having* taken it, cause it 
by your words, and by your deeds, to be known on 
earth and told in Heaven, that mothers here have 
dared to do their duty, their whole duty, and that* 



EFFECTS OF TEMPERANCE. 309 

within the precincts of that consecrated spot over 
which their balmy, hallowed influence extends, the 
doom of drunkenness is sealed. 

Nor mothers only ; in this benign and holy enter- 
prise, the daughter and the mother alike are 
interested. 

Ye young, might the speaker be permitted to 
address you, as w T ell as your honored parents, and 
those teachers, their assistants, w r hose delightful task 
it is to bring forward the unfolding germs of thought, 
and teach the young idea how to shoot — might the 
speaker, whose chief concernment hitherto has been 
the education of the young, be permitted to address 
you, he would bespeak your influence, your urgent, 
persevering influence, in behalf of a cause so pure, 
so full of mercy, and so every way befitting your age, 
your sex, your character. 

! could the speaker make a lodgment, an effec- 
tual lodgment, in behalf of temperance, within those 
young, warm, generous, active hearts within his hear- 
ing, or rather within the city where it is his privilege 
to speak, who this side of heaven could calculate the 
blessed, mighty, enduring consequence ? Could this 
be done, then might the eye of angels rest with in- 
creased complacency on this commercial metropolis,* 
already signalized by Christian charity, as well as 
radiant with intellectual glory ; — but then lit up 
anew with fire from off virtue's own altar, and thus 
caused to become, amid the surrounding desolation 

* Philadelphia. 



310 RESULTS. 

which intemperance has occasioned, more conspicu- 
ously than ever, an asylum of mercy to the wretched 
and a beacon light of promise to the wanderer. 

Then from this favored spot, as from some great 
central source of power, encouragement might be 
given and confidence imparted to the whole sister- 
hood of virtue, and a redeeming influence sent forth, 
through many a distant town and hamlet, to mingle 
with other and kindred influences in effecting through- 
out the land, among the youth of both sexes, that 
moral renovation called for, and which, when realized, 
will be at once the earnest and the anticipation of 
millennial glory. 

! could we gain the young, — the young who 
have no inveterate prejudice to combat, no estab- 
lished habits to overcome ; could we gain the young, 
we might, after a single generation had passed away, 
shut up the dram-shop, the bar-room and the rum- 
selling grocery, and, by shutting these up, shut up 
also the poor-house, the prison-house, and one of the 
broadest and most frequented avenues to the charnel 
house. 

More than this, could we shut up these licensed 
dispensaries of crime, disease and death, we might 
abate the severity of maternal anguish, restore de- 
parted joys to conjugal affection, silence the cry 
of deserted orphanage, and procure for the poor de- 
mented suicide a respite for self-inflicted vengeance. 

This, the gaining of the young to abstinence, would 
constitute the mighty fulcrum on which to plant 



RESULT?. 311 

that moral lever of power, to raise a world from 
degradation. 

! how the clouds would scatter, the prospect 
brighten, and the firmament of hope clear up, could 
the )~oung be gained, intoxicating liquors be ban- 
ished, and abstinence, with its train of blessings in- 
troduced throughout the earth. 



APPENDIX. 



313 



I « § 

O S ^> 

« is £ "S 

£ s 

S £ *> * 

■** ^ "^ « 
K$ -^ ^ ^ 

"8 jsi 



^ 



8 ' 
5S 



J3 ^ 



u 



C> i =C QJ Q> 

O >K> ^ *<s» 

ft- «•- ^ 

^.^ *> £> 

^ ^ «§ ^ 

s § § * 

^ 00 ^ ^ 

•<s> ^ Oo *0 

^| 

£ <U 00 ^> 



o 
< 

CQ 
O 

0. 
< 

a 



o 







I c3 o a ' •. fcc+» 3 




oJ -: 


c3 T3 


T3 -° 5 ? « • 








§ bc^o © * ^ ^ "^ a 




2 s 


C^cc C3 f-> <v 




a 


o 


^•^w^ 53 ^-^3iS 




© "** 


^ a 
."S3 a 


5^3 C » 8 S°5 m 




^o 


* § 






el 




^ ^ 




1" 






^y^ j . _A_ 






^\ 










.s 








g 












. S S^ § a 




B 




3 


.^03. r -T3'-C:3„ „ 


.^ 


!=S 




> 


,S ,S .5 . c .S . c c * " 


" . C 


5 .2 


a 




'^ 'J "p *p *p *> *p 


*? 


"P 










**" 


-»j 










'So 


^ ^r ^ ?r ^ ^ ?r d 


?T 


?T ?T 


Fh 




O V. 


o o 


o 


i 


^^^?,^^^^- 


^ - 


^ ^ 


^ 




<»«»» (>^i ( — i <"»j H-*i K^i K»^ ("<i 


1 — i 


J'-O 1 — i 





a 


oooooooo 


o 


o o 


o 


o 








P3 


02 




















aT CD 








« 


c2 ^ a 








[oa 


O - « - 2 ^ fl ^ - 








Tc 










a 


'5 ^ '? ^ 








© CD 










H fl 












0? 


'93.18^ 


00J>-^00T^i>CiG^O 


rH rH 


JCCM 


CM CO iH CVl »0 rH 


t-1 rH 


CM 


•ja^qQ 


?>?>r-<COGO^CMOrH 

CM CM t-h CO CM CQ 


rH lO 


^< W 






! ra 




vji 




^ C^ 




o 


05 ■■■!,'...*"■ 


gpJS 


QQ *» 


o 
pq 


■c2 r ' ^3 c3 

CD 2 -+3 c<3 CD 


a cs 
^3 S2 




<D ©-"WO o 

OP ^y ^ 


C« CD 


S o 




K^PhB 


a 


*S S a o i fi . 






F O 


OT G O C — ' CU 






3 l"-§.^^ §5 








X5 3 — aa 






A 2 
P5 -4 


ROSH is 
thirty - six 
with appro 
for the fr 
the vine in 
tural and 
toxicating 






E4 








H 




H 







314 



APPENDIX. 



S3 

w 









t3 ' • 

c £ S 

ej M © 


rf <d to 


■g * 


15 T3 


T^ Wg.2 


*fa g 


J o 


B 5„ ..tig 


^ 


* O 


§ * * 8 rf 


k 'r3 « 


— <1> 




»-"** tfl 




°*?. 11 3 


_,n3 .© 

5cd 




•-> Q^.S l h ej O 


•hsJO 




£ £ 


► 






Cl 


""" — -A— ., ,-^-v 


A J 


F 


C^ 













"3 


a s Jss J j 


s 

CD 




"3 


& .^ 3 ^ s s 0' A O S .h 


rt3 




P> 


.9 .3 - 2 .5 .5 .2 .2 . fl . fl £ a , c fl s 


^ ^ ^ .S§ 


.s 




*p *p M "p *£ 'p *p 'p "p ^*p *p *p 


'? 


















^d 






^d 


*5b 


> > > in «t " «r c* > 




?_i 


c3 


OO^^ O ^ ^ OO 3-ijT ^ ^ 




a> 


3 


1— *S t"«i t»«0 «--^ l-«0 J--0 O ("»i J-^ 




173 


-u 




pa 


a. 


OO O OOO -Q_ O O 






w. 








~ CD 








cd a? a 






CO 


£3 „ S3 ^ .h 

© ■£ <» '£ © ^ aT 






"So 


"^^^d^J^o ^^* .13 " ^J 


«•«»<«■ 






£ £ T* > V s * 






00 fe 










•asjaA 


<J}(MOOi>00(MeOi>COOOO^tOC^?> 


CO ^ ^ J> 


HCO(MH rHrHr-HrHrH W H tH r- 


<^c CC 


•aa;di3q3 


(M00(MC5WHl>0i05Mi0WO00^ 


rffOOHO 


HCOCOOCO CO rH r- 


HHCOH 






' QQ ' * ' 





' GO 






• CD • ■ ' 


f 1 • 1 1 • 


! ! ® 1 












O 




Is ■ '* 


J 1 j : : : s 






5P 8 rf? a 


j_ DO j^ • ^ CD 

- <^ CD rj J3-Q 


• ' ' s § 




-a s 




- ^ w CD 




i-s^^hh bfiNb^HbStzie 


G^^ 




1 a> ©^ 

&>^3 a a 




£ O 


^a £ ^ a 




S 

H 3 


w +2 £ « £ 33 




CO « 



2 ft. 
C3 ■< 


§ ^ .2 «M g 'g 

^ §.0 += -2 "a ?£ 




* 8 








e 







APPENDIX. 



315 



£ a 

•s* 


=2 d 

■a is 

OS H C 






1 




s 

>> 

.2 




O 




toS 00 


&- 1 !^ 

d ® o 






1 


3 


'> 


S 


*i 












|J3 


"2 




c3 






g £p 






5 




ig 


^3 


(3 




— « ej O 
















O 




£ 


£ p 






£ 




P 


S 








^ ,— » U. A 


_^_ 


\ _ 










, , A., 






\ r^- 




^^ ■ -'' N - 








~ 


d 
















,-T a d cd 


s 


CD 

d 


s 




s ^ 


B - 


tS co c3 

,H c p 


a 

.5 

> 

d 




fl 75 ^ DH3 - 

•£ P § O <V 

> 3 | 9 3 
> ra P 


"3 > 

bJO p 


m 




a 








T3 


















^ £ £ 
° fa b 


o 

§- 


% 
b 

3- 






* * 1 r - 1 

O o S t © 53 
> ^ §_ ©- °- 3* 










e+H 










CP 




■« 


*, 


CD 


O 


^, 








p 




CD 

p 


CD 

.- .. d 


.s 


O 

o 

CO 

P 










fe CO 




d 


p © P 

CD 

p. 


CD 
GO 


cs3 

<D 

rP 




0? 


e d 

«g >. o - 5 

° H bj}- 
P c3 
O q5 

CP 






^ — «. 


^ — v 


















£L< 


-^ 
















05»0 W 


ocT^ *Q 


ffi CO 


r* 




e^ 




as c^ 


C75 (TO >0 H 




<M rH 




00 
t-H 


rH 








CM 


t-H 




O 0-5 CO 


(M 00 rH 


co o 


CO 




i> 




<£> 1> 


CD CO CQ CO 




tH rH t-H 






CO 




CM 






»-H 




















' CO ' ' 

• = ©-•>■ 




if 

g, . 


• CO • 
C8.2 ' 


CO 


• 




^ 










CD 


© += —T 

J5 <^ o 


o 

s a 


OJ 




"8 




S3 ■* 


03 P ^ J r- ( CO 

020 § l 




fc 


Mob 


^o 








w 


whQhh 






t< I J) O-rJ 




















S?jsc a 




















<2 S^ '£ * 


bC 


















^ §*. a?* 


q 


d 
S3 




d 




c 


a 






© ra £ 2 u 




o 




o 




■^ 


.o 






.52 £ gf'o d 


o 






C3 




-if 








so ® .2 S ■§ 


"a d 


* 
< 




£3 




<J 


GO 

3 






kSISa 


'c a 


"• 


£> ^,£5 «K .5 


P w 


K 




juj 




d 


ro 






«J 




B 




K 




^ 


W 





316 



APPENDIX. 



a 


TJ 


~ 


03 


* 


o 


•s 


03 




o 

< 
pa 

G 
SC! 

Oh 
P- 

< 



Q 

a. 

CO 



tf 



pq 



--S - a S fl 

► .s v l § .@ 

i> k g ► 



§1 



s 
•I a 



3- O O O !£ 

^ ^ ^ ^ v§ 

© o o o ^ 



o o c o o 

S ^S kS ^S kS 

© © © © © 






3* 

o 



CD 



•9SJ8^ 



rH Oi r-i rH rH rH v 













00 


05 


© 


7} 


w 


03 


J> 


C? 


T— 1 


T— 


CO 


i— 1 








•ja^duqQ 



Ci^iofoojTHio^oDcDoooooow^ioojo 

"*< CM rHCOO t-H CM ^ ^ ^ i-H 



PQ 



. rQ 

■S £ S 

<X> r-> <£ 



. „ rC 



O 02 C^ 



a 






1 1 i 4 



a 



w 3 

02 M 

f 9 



11:111^11 

=! - "S "h •- .2 * +s 






' P* E 3 ta « ^ -»-> 



APPENDIX. 



317 



?&v 



•r.S.p * 

C "r^ A 

53 _rp 

2 ° * 
p _ « s- 



o * * 



C hi a 

o o J? -- 



S rf 



gaff 

a n 



P3 
P 



p ~ p „ 
•r« - P - 



•2 g .a .2 z § 



.^ p 



o 
a 



o 



oo oooo oo o o o 



P 



CO lO GO ^=fo GO 

1—1 T— I ,-H T— 1 



O ^ 



"sT* — j \rs r— I r— I rH 



>q 



liOOOi>OffO»OJ>O^H^HCOOCi 
Tp rH rH rH <M CM CM 



HHrfiC5CiiO?OOWNW' 

rH CM rH GM rH rH rH 



lO^OCJMiCifJiOOOHOOCi 
I CM CM CM *H rH rH CM rHrH 



P- © 

o> o 



r^^ © O 



© 

p 



o2 ? © p p 



P 



u3 c3 



-a ,P 
OO 



N ^ C5 ft ^ rH CM rH 



S 


' w 


■+3 

CO 

.5 

'55 

33 


a5 


03 

p 
a 


X 

t-t 

33 
O 


© 


-^ 


r U 


^ij 


a 


,a 


33 


O 


O 


> 


a? 


S3 


C 


M 


© 


~ 



9 

P 


P 

,. o 


c3 


& 


ZO 


U 



^SHSh 1 ^ 



I O I 

sj +2 J2 ~~» 

h q > 

h£ J) in 

■S^ ° 

> P ■+■• ai 

t? o ^_ 5Q 

53 O 2 

r* 



P-,p P «« £ -S 



^^Ip 5 ! 

^j p<<5 « ,a «j .a 



318 



APPENDIX. 



2 
o 

< 
O 

cs 

< 
a 













•a 

a 

89 


a 


2 >»S 




o 




>H ^ 


•°JS a 


^ s 




„ U <X> 

E,e8« 


.-s d 


o o ^ 


o o"^ 


£ 3 


jjj"" ' K 






£ a 


£ 






6 


© S o 




^P 


& z ~ - 


c ;: :: s a s " - s 




3 


g 


V .2 'p 




K> 


V 


► 


.s 










-t-S 








d 








'So 

c3 


** o £ 


„ 3- © ^ © o- © « ,. 


0) 


d 


^ ^ ^ - 


- ^ ^ - ?* ^ ^ - ~ 


T3 




H««i K«0 <-»0 




P. 


O © o 


© © © © © 












| 


cS 








£„,.,. 






d 


■£ 


•0SJ8^ 


^OWiO 


lCI>W^Or- HCQH 


CQ 


i—i t— 1 rH CO CM 


•J8;d^q3 


C^> ^ Ci 01 

rH 


rH t*h f^ CM lO 






! ! 


^ r £ ' '• ' ! 


o 

o 


C3 






a> -+3 > - 


^q ,£ ^ „ <U J~ c3 „ 




% & o 


O S3 S3 c3 "2 - 




© © 2 


c3 c3 OP 02 g 




KQ^ 


SJ O OPhw 


W 


, 




H 


p. 




^ 55 


ed 




^ 2 


^3 • 




Q H 


&£§ 




« 3 






P o 


*< «-2 




PS 

2 S 

H eu 


.5 A 




s 
B 


«« 


o 
o 







APPENDIX. 



319 



e g § 




„ $ -s 








C <^ O 




s ^ ^ 








f<i o 








~^-S 




s-s-5 




S <o 








*^ h 




£ '§ ^ 




OH. 




* c<> 63 K 




HO ^ <?J 




« SO ^ 




l<> *•* "S 




o s> 




disappr 
n which 
'om the 


o 

H 
< 

CQ 




O 




< 

CQ 


.Mi* 


ft 




a 




H 


£ 


%" H ^ 




vine 
stat 
e te 
ima 


i 




55 


*<t <i 




<v> 1^0 to X. 


i* 


~'8 §~ 


< 
>* 


tof 
rtifi 
fro 
effec 




t **% * 


< 


theft 

,n its 

evide 

or th 


SB 

CQ 

O 


^ its ^ ^> 


EH 


K$ „ 55 




SJ |P 8 




^ ^ -5 '«» 




^ © ^ e* 












» § ** 8 




s « s r* 
8j* § fe 




^ 





c3 -73 



fer o 



o J, 



141 i-g; 
SI* IT 

■ fc -c s? ' 



* 
A 







<. 3) fl 3 
CD ^ 



ft 


£ 






O^ > 


ft 


3~ 


£> 






ft 


c 


O 






O O 





O 


3 




O 


ft 


ft 


»■ 


>* 


ft ft 


ft 


ft 


ft 


3 


ft 




i««a 






t— *-»c 


c-o 


k*j 








►«o 





O 






c 





O 


O 






O 



too 

a 



•asaa^ 









•J8}ch3qQ 



■^OiOiiOCOOOOOOOCOMH 



o 
o 

PQ 



CO 

<D CD 
CO fl 

o a? 

wo 



© CO 

S 3^ 

c3 >- c3 

QQ P '^ 

-T 1 co 
rH Ph HH 



<D 



<© 

a 






eJ .2 «, ► m - 5 

R h « d , « ^S a 

CO' ^^-^^ Sao* 



320 



APPENDIX. 



a 
a 



I a [ m p 



S ° I i I I 

bill- 1 



© 2 
1" 



C P 

« a 






o S3 

S3 2 « 



S3 35 



•-? S 



„ S3 S3 ^ ~ S 5 fl 



© a 



& & 






j> .2 ? .2 



CO * 

.2 -? B 
^ d d 

•p ► 



tf 






0-0^ 



o o 0-0 o ^ 

A ^ ^ ^ ^ - 

k-o t*>o <-»£> i»«o <-^> 
OOOOO 



5> ^ 

o ^ o 

o o 






S3 



' 8SJ0 A 



CM CO ^H iC 00 CO 
CO CO CO CO CM CO 



*0 Ci 

CO GO ^ ° 



H IO ^ CO H GO 
rH CM 1— I rH 



•ja^dteqQ 



rHr-!rHrHrH00CMCM<r>i> CM CM 



w 



© 



^ - « v* S3 



03 



S3 

o 



3 

g 

oa § 2 

cmQPh 



co ^ 
^3 33 



%2 



CO 3 



pi, Ph^MOh^ 



f3 co 
c3 O 



! <o a .2 © ^. a 
: '3 o* 






^^* 



£2^'~ oT^8 

P & A - Is 3 - § 

5§'£.S5'S.S3 



APPENDIX. 



321 



«©£ 






1*2 



© 5 ° E 
c 3 - c 2 a 2 






= d .5 § d S 



.3 c .s 






- q 5 -F 



H .5 



s= S 



© - v* v* 

^ - - * 



© o 
o o 



© o o 5 « 

^ ^ ^ ^ - 

*«o c»«i *-*^ y««s 

© O O O 



o 

© 
© 2 



© ,. 

o 



© o 



S3 



COrH i— 1 h w H jyj t— i cvj 



W W H GV> Oi ^ »0 »C W ^D t» 'O X 
CO C\> QZ iO 



t-HU^I>5>J>O^fOC0C0 



- * g a> 

§-§ £ § 



rd 






OS 


' 


173 


• 


S3 




r-4 




a 




03 


02 


■4-3 


^ 

O 


,£5 


OJ 

bo 


© 


N 


S3 


a 


h^H^^ 



fcfi ■ 



u* 



322 



PFENDIX. 



< 
o 

w 

IB 
03 



s 



aS 


T3 




o «o 




■si 






A 


a> 








tt ^ 




t? 


-t-3 


o 

(D 

a 


a 
.2 
23 


5l Q 








.2 

2gn 


► 


o 


2 






as oa 

0) •»■< 




"^ "C .-^ 






Put 


&H 




tf 




Ph 






r— * ^ 


^ ^ 




a 












H3 




<d 












O <D „ 
















S ^-+3 




tfl 


s S s 


o 


B 






2 ® Si 

S c 




£ 


.S -S .S " " 


2 2 .2 - 




2 2 2 


2 








> 




















o "" 


d 


















+3 














T3 


'So 

as 


o c 3- o „ 


« ^ o 3- 






c 




o 


=3 


^ ^ > ^ - 


- - > > 


> - 




~ 


^ 


T3 




<">0 t-*i ►•O K^ 


K^i c^> 






K^a 


Oh 

OQ 


c o o © 


o o 


c 




O 


to 














































& 
















a 




















A 












*-■ 




OQ 


C - v. ^ „ 


<•<■«•«• 


>• 


<• «• «■ 


„ 


T3 




fcfi 


£ 


«■«•«•«• 




«*>•«» 


"• 


to 




a 










P 




W 












o 

+3 

CO 



•8SJ9A 


J> ^ rH 


^W^iOkOOOO^OO^O 


CO o> 


rH rH 


rH rH 






r-i 


1— 1 




ua^cTeqo 


CO 00 CO 


r-\ OJ »0 »0 rH r-i *0 


uo 


LO 


«3 


^H 


o o 


t-H rH rH 


CO CO CO CO 


CO 


CO 


CO 




i-{ rH 


,.w 


! ! j 


co * r-B ; ■ eg 










! o5" 


o 
o 
pq 


CO 

too- 2 
H-3 


g s a 2 S a 


2 


2 


2 


Pi 


S3 
O 

• l-H 1 


r o 
















<D -u 
















OQ 'H 


^S£ 
















^«1 














5 ° 

£ 1 


P* 2 

fifed 












pi 

D 

i 


H ' 


|H 












3 



APPENDIX. 



323 



© it 

"I 

I 



<3 ft. 

5 a 



Ph 



fl o 



o a 2 



! 



£ a> «s -+a c3 

CD JD += 3 O V* v 

a .s °- m .s 3 

o CD ^ 

CO 




^ C3 „ 



CD 



•J ® s 

O- c3 .S 
CD .Jh 



r^2 
CD 



2^ 



c3 



3 

to 



8 






8 

to 






CO ^ Qb CO 
i*» N co y. 



£3.. 



•CO 5 

a-v 



43 




o 



T3 .S 



c3 



^5 „ 

o 



CO 



CO 



T# J> ^ \& 



G^ 



HrjiH(MHM>l>OiCi00 
tH CQ rH rH 



CO CO CO rH 



so 



OH»OiOC3GOOOOO^O^ 
CQ CO G^ C^ 03 Gvj G^ 



m 
cd 

a 



CD 

rrj v 

P 



CD 

a 



Ah 



CD ^ 


-5 


^^ 


> 


°3 . 


c3 cc3 


O 


"S3 " 

CO 

pH 


.2 "S3 



o 

w 



1 rt 'TS to 1 » 

8'? S|fl 






3 o a ® «gi 

s 



324 



APPENDIX. 



O 

< 
ca 
o 

0- 
02 



ffi 



o 



« 
o 

CO 





© 
C 
d 
o 
o 


Dross. 
Stubble. 


CO 

a 

C 

a 

© 

,14 

a 

S3 

p 


Inebriety. 
Dregs. 

Forsaking God. 
Inebriety. 
Ashes. 


CD 

u 

d 
© 

PS 


© 

"S 


a a o r * s w 

P 2 P- S ^ ^ 

IS 85|1 


••— i CD 

O £_■ 


ebrietate, j 

epotandis, 

misto, 

libatis, 

miscendam, 

miscebam, 


d 

'5b 

c3 

d 

© 
Ul 


'co - 

o 




- ? « fe =T 




ll ^ 

t3 rS 


DO 

CD 

BO 

s 

o 


P 

•S « .Pa 
p "P ^ g -g 

.9 ^ 

r-3 


•as j 9^ 


c\> o o o 


t-H 


OODHOJQ 
CO rH CQ 


•jg^d^qQ 


rH tH H CO 


CO 


o: »o io io w 

C^ i> CO o 

rH 


M 

o 
o 

n 


! GO 

pP 2 * <D 


rP 

go 

rH 


CO ' ' * 

_ia * • • • 

tZ co co 

O d'3 - c3 

S-, OS $ CO 

PhPhhh Ph 


© 

CO 

d 

O 

a 

CO 


d 

-t-i 
o 

CD 
eg 

to 

1 


5* a 

P CO _, 

PQ bJD C O 
° °-° £ 




"Mesech," and its 
cognates, used 
four times with 
disapprobation, 
twice with appro- 
bation. 

Indifferent. 



APPENDIX. 



325 



a 


TS 


A 


s 


* 


a 




o) 


£ 


p 


> 


o 



O © 14 






O J ° 

c3 &r s 



3 






— 1 


© 


G2 

B 








5 


P> »H 


p£> 



'- 
p 

H 
© 
P 
O 

c 
o 
o 

PS 

c 
- 

50 






« 



w 



C* ^ ^ ^ 

N pJ C^i l-xi f-O 

Q_ O O O 



<° ? s 



£ o o 



S> fc 52 3 



©*.s 



S " bL 






s f> 3 © s> 










* 



•0SJ9A 



h :o oo Ci o w ^ 

rH r— 1 i— I W 



CM 



i> <N 



•aaid^qQ 



iO ^ w w 



rH rj< t# G^ CV 
G\> CM CM 



^ lO i« ift >o 



GO O 
G\! lO 



PQ 






^3 

a ^ 









c3 

bJD ©" 
c3 © 



ft 



j3 

Is 



3 a, 5 S 

a * 2 ** 
da H H 



£ {H 



« 




P4 


- a 


-«J 


<4 


5 W 


« 


a 


H ^fc 


a 


-< 




•4 


H 


w 


n 



© « 



«f 5 



LETTER 



FROM 



MR. DELAVAN TO GOVERNOR KING. 



OFFICE NEW YORK STATE EMPERANCE SOCIETY, , 
Albany, X. Y., January 21st, 1857. / 

To His Excellency John A. Kl\ t g, 

Governor of the State of New York: 

Dear Sir — Your elevation to the high and responsible 
station of the Chief Magistrate of the Empire State, so 
greatly multiplies your influence over all classes and ages of 
your fellow-citizens, that I confess my self desirous that your 
sympathies and active cooperation should be enlisted on the 
side of the cause of Temperance. With this motive, I take 
the liberty to ask you to read this communication, which 
cites a part of the proofs that this movement has already 
achieved very considerable results for the public good. I lay 
these facts before you with more encouragement and hope, 
because I am of the impression that, to statements which are 
honestly submitted, you will listen with candor, even when 
you are not prepared to endorse the reasoning and inferences 
which accompany them. It is by calm and kind appeals to 
the judgments and consciences of men, that so many, both 



328 APPENDIX. 

of the humble and the great, have been brought to advocate 
and support the cause of Abstinence and Prohibition. And 
it is on such means that the friends of the cause should rely 
to bring distinguished public men, like your Excellency, 
among the number. 

EFFECTS OF PROHIBITION ON CRIME IN NEW-YORK. 

When some of our opponents survey the field as it is now, 
they say that there never was more selling in the State than 
at present, and that therefore all the efforts of Temperance 
men have wrought no good, but have made even matters 
worse. But this is not fair. They should revert to the 
period when the Prohibitory Law was in force, by which the 
commitments for crime in this State were reduced two-fifths 
from the number under the License Law. The operations of 
the Prohibitory Law were such, that during the six months 
after it came in force, there were in nine counties but 2898 
commitments for crime, compared with 4960 in the same 
counties during the same period under the License Law. 
The fearful and sudden increase in drunkenness since that 
law was laid prostrate, so far from proving that the efforts 
of Temperance men are of no avail, only demonstrates the 
deplorable effects of ^thwarting those efforts. For if that law 
had been sustained by the Court of Appeals, as it had already 
been by a majority of the Judges of the Supreme Court, 
what a vast abatement would it by this time have wrought 
in Intemperance, Pauperism and Crime ! And perhaps the 
disastrous consequences which resulted from annulling that 
law were necessary to work a complete conviction of the 
wisdom and policy of Prohibition. 

But the enactment, and the temporary enforcement of the 
Prohibitory Law in this State, and the enactment and per- 
manent enforcement of such a law in Connecticut, Vermont, 



APPENDIX. 329 

New Hampshire, and other States, is only one of the fruits 
of the Temperance Reform. 

It was stated by the Executive Committee of this Society, 
in their Report* to the Meeting on the 18th of December, 
that " during the twenty-nine years since your Society was 
organized, such a reformation has been wrought in the habits 
of the civilized world as has never before been witnessed in 
the same length of time." I think that facts will fully bear 
out this statement. 

LIQUORS ON THE TABLE AND SIDE-BOARD. 

1. When the Temperance Reform began, thirty years 
ago, every family who could afford it had intoxicating liquors 
on the table and side-board. These included not only wine, 
but brandy and rum. Every guest and every caller was in- 
vited to drink, and it was about as uncivil not to drink as 
not to invite to drink. In this respect the usages of society 
have undergone a striking change. The family tables which 
have liquors are now the exception. In many of these cases 
they are furnished only when guests are present, and the 
liquors are almost universally limited to wines. 

DRINKING. USAGES AMONG FARMERS. 

2. Hardly a farm in the land was worked without spirits ; 
and such a case was a matter of remark, and was pointed to 
as an evidence of niggardliness in the owner. It would now 
be a matter of unfavorable remark, if a farmer should furnish 
his workmen with intoxicating liquors. Not one in a thou- 
sand, if one in ten thousand does it. 

* See Prohibitionist for December, 1856, p. 90, vol. iii. 



330 APPENDIX. 

3. Every farmer, having an orchard, had a cider mill, or 
used his neighbor's. Cider was as plenty in the farmer's 
cellar, as water in his well; and it was drank in place of 
water by men. women and children. The falling off in the 
use of cider is, of itself, a striking and conclusive proof of 
the revolution which the Temperance Reform has wrought 
in the drinking usages of society. 

4. Intoxicating liquors were almost universally brought 
into our workshops. Now, almost never. 

AMONG SAILORS AND TRAVELERS. 

5. Time was when nearly every merchant vessel which 
sailed on the ocean, the rivers or lakes, furnished spirit 
rations to the men. I doubt if any do so now. This change 
is very marked as to fishery and whaling ships ; a class of 
facts which, a mutual friend informs me, your Excellency is 
well acquainted with. 

6. When the ocean steamships began to cross the Atlantic 
their tables were supplied with spirits as free as water. This 
was the case in the Great Western, when I crossed in her, in 
one of her earliest voyages, in 1S39. When off Great Britain, 
the passengers held a meeting (Lord Lenox in the chair), 
and, to the number of one hundred and twenty, signed a 
petition to the owners, at Bristol, requesting them to discon- 
tinue this custom. It happened, to the undersigned to be 
appointed to present said petition. I did so ; and the liquors 
disappeared thereafter from the table. I believe every 
steamship now adopts the same rule. 

7. At the period referred to, there was not a hotel table or 
steamboat table at which ardent spirits were not furnished 
free. It would have been considered as unfurnished, as if it 
was without bread or salt, Now there is not a public table in 
the land where intoxicating liquor is furnished gratuitously 



APPENDIX. 331 

And probably not one person out of twenty, at our public 
tables, calls for such liquors. 

REFORMATION OF THE DRUNKARD. 

8. When the reform began, it was thought that modera- 
tion would save the drunkard. Since that time, even 
temperance advocates have supposed that the avoidance of 
ardent spirits would save him. Now it is pretty generally 
admitted, on all hands, that the drunkard is safe only when 
he abstains entirely from all liquors, wines included. It 
being admitted that abstinence is of vital consequence to 
the drunkard, it follows that it is the duty of others to ab- 
stain, so as not only to remove every temptation, but to 
strengthen him by the force of example. 

9. The testimony of convicts that their crime began with 
drink ; and of drunkards generally, that they learned the 
habit from their parents, or from the example of professing 
Christians, have united with science to impress upon all 
parents, and all good men, the solemn conviction that as 
Abstinence is the only safe practice for themselves, so it is 
the only proper example for others. 

PUBLIC SENTIMENT AS TO THEIR HEALTHFULNESS. 

10. The belief that all use of intoxicating liquors as a 
beverage is injurious, and never beneficial, has pretty gene- 
rally taken the place of the idea that the moderate use of 
it is safe, and almost entirely of the error that such liquors 
are essential to health as a beverage. 

11. Since the Temperance agitation commenced, the 
most eminent physicians of this and other countries have de- 
clared by thousands that intoxicating liquors are not only 
unnecessary as a beverage, but positively injurious. That 
Bven in sickness it is rarely necessary j while in health it is 



332 APPENDIX. 

always injurious, impairing the functions of the brain, the 
stomach, and indeed the whole human organism.* 

IN CONNECTION WITH RELIGIOUS SOLEMNITIES. 

12. Thirty years ago, liquors were brought forward as a 
matter of course, at weddings, at christenings, and even at 
funerals. After burial, the friends returned to the house of 
the mourners to drink. Now intoxicating liquors are the 
exception at weddings, seldom furnished at christenings, 
and almost never at funerals. 

13. It used to be thought that the Bible favored the use 
of intoxicating liquors as a beverage. Now the idea is ex- 
tensively prevalent that where the Bible approves of wine 
as a beverage, it means the unintoxicating wine of the 
cluster, the press, and the vat, while intoxicating wine is 
condemned as " the mocker." 

14. When fifteen years ago I instituted an inquiry as to 
the kind of wine, intoxicating or unintoxicating, which it was 
proper to be used at the Communion, great numbers of 
church members were sorely troubled for fear of harm to the 
solemn rites of Religion. Very many journals, both religious 



* Since this letter was written, the following resolution, which goes 
beyond any expression which has heretofore emanated from any large 
body of the Faculty, was passed unanimously by the Medical Society 
of the State of New York, 4th February, 1857 : 

"Resolved — That in view of the ravages made upon the morals, 
health and property of the people of this State by the use of alcoholic 
drinks, it is the opinion of this Medical Society that the moral, sani- 
tary and pecuniary condition of the State would be promoted by the 
passage of a Prohibitory Liquor Law." 

For a detailed account of this important event in the Temperance 
world, and which, strange to say, was not even mentioned in any 
newspaper reports of the society's proceedings, see the Prohibitionist 
for March, 1867, vol. iv., p. 20. 



APPENDIX. 333 

and political, denounced the movement. Within a few 
months I have caused, on my own responsibility, some 20,000 
pamphlets to be issued on the same subject, and not one 
word of disapprobation has yet reached me. 

HABITS AND SENTIMENTS OF THE CLERGY. 

15. An aged Divine, now living, well acquainted with the 
clergy in Albany and vicinity, once drew my attention to the 
fact that, some thirty years ago, every clergyman when 'he 
made his pastoral visits was invited to drink. If he visited 
twenty of his parishioners, he was invited to drink, and some- 
times did drink, twenty times. The same Divine found that 
fifty per cent of the clergy, within a circuit of fifty miles, 
died drunkards * Now it is only a small proportion of the 

* A writer in the New York Observer questions the correctness of 
the statement of an aged clergyman in Albany to Mr. Delavan, that 
a minister of former days was exposed in twenty visits in a day to 
twenty strong drinks, and that fifty per cent of the ministers in a 
circuit of fifty miles were drunkards. As to the first, every man 
living, who was in the ministry in 1820, knows it was true. Good Dr. 
Fisher said, in conversing on this subject a little before his death, 
that it was the greatest wonder he was not a drunkard ; he was in his 
early ministry so forced to drink, lest he should, by refusal, offend 
his parishioners. The mug of cider or brandy sling was brought out 
at every house. As to the proportion of intemperate ministers, this 
is, no doubt, in general, incorrect ; though it was not, as can be con- 
firmed by men living as far back as 1810, in some of our cities. And 
there was no reason why it should not be so. Ministers have the same 
flesh and blood and nerves with other men ; and if they will drink 
poison, why should they not suffer? " Can a minister take fire in his 
bosom and not be burned ? Can he walk on hot coals and his feet not 
be burned?" Thanks be to Him who takes care of his church, that 
the ministry have been pulled from the lire ; though sad it is, that 
some are yet trifling with it, and are boasting how strong they are. — 
Journal of the American Temperance U'/iion. 



334 APPENDIX. 

clergy who drink a drop ; and those who do drink show 
themselves extremely sensitive when the fact is alluded to 
in print, as if they regarded it as a reflection upon their 
standing as Ministers of the Gospel. 

16. It is thirty years since, at a large assembly of the 
Ministers of the Gospel, in New England, one of their 
number, impressed with the evils of the Drink-System, urged 
them to adopt a resolution pledging themselves to abstain 
— not from wines — but from Ardent Spirits, while at the 
convention. It failed. These pious and devoted clergy- 
men could not see why they should be called upon to give 
up a " good creature of God." Now there are vast relig- 
ious bodies, who, were they to see one of their ministers 
drink intoxicating liquors, would be affected almost as 
much as if they were to hear him swear. 

FASHION — THE PRESS. 

17. Though few of the rich and fashionable have openly 
professed adherence to the Temperance cause, yet many now 
express their sympathy with it and are beginning to aid it 
pecuniarily, as a movement which inures to the public good. 
Many of our most distinguished citizens have lately given 
large social entertainments without wine ; and this is not so 
significant, as that public opinion sustains and applauds it. 

18. There was a time when the Temperance movement 
was the common theme of ridicule with the press. Now 
there are but few journals, even those which are opposed to 
Prohibition, which do not approve voluntary abstinence, and 
which do not compliment private citizens, or public bodies, 
who give entertainments without intoxicating liquors. 

19. The spirit-ration has been abolished in the army. I 
am of the impression, too, that it has been diminished in 
the navy. 



APPENDIX. 335 

MANUFACTURING ESTABLISHMENTS. 

20. Before the Temperance Reform began, and while we 
were ignorant of the nature and effects of strong drink, 
Nathaniel Prime, Lynde Catlin, and others, myself among 
the number, formed a chartered company, with a capital of 
$300,000. for the manufacture of steam engines and other 
heavy iron work. Thinking to do good to the workmen, and 
further the objects of the company, we directed that strong 
beer should be passed, gratis, to every man two or three 
times a day. We soon found that our work was badly done, 
almost every contract was in consequence litigated in the 
courts, and the company failed ; by which failure the com- 
pany not only sunk the whole capital of $300,000, but (to 
save their own credit) ten of the stockholders contributed ten 
thousand dollars each, to pay off further liabilities, of which 
eight thousand dollars of my contribution ( including my 
whole stock) proved a dead loss. On a review of the whole 
subject, I firmly believe that this catastrophe is mainly as- 
cribable to the unfortunate drinking habits which, from the 
best of motives, we ourselves encouraged. 

21. Another company, formed to manufacture nearly the 
same kind of article, and who employed about 100 work- 
men, had their attention drawn to the evils of strong drink 
among operatives. One of the partners drew up a Total 
Abstinence Pledge, signed it, and induced nearly every 
workman to adopt the same principle. When the step was 
taken, hardly one of the workmen was beforehand in the 
world, and many were in debt. After four years upon the 
Temperance principle, none were in debt, and many had 
bought lots of land, and erected cottages for their families ; 
and one of the partners told me that the aggregate amount 
saved by these 100 men during the four years since they 

Noii 



336 APPENDIX. 

abandoned strong drink, would make capital enough to 
carry on the business operations of the company. 

EFFECTS OF THE REFORM ON NATIONAL WEALTH. 

22. A manufacturer who employed 300 hands, informed 
me that after they all, or nearly all, adopted the Total 
Abstinence principle, the prosperity of the establishment 
was vastly promoted, and that their improved steadiness, 
fidelity and style of workmanship were as good to him as a 
protective duty of twenty-five per cent. At this rate, what 
sums have accrued to the National wealth from the adop- 
tion of Temperance principles by the hundreds of thou- 
sands of abstainers ! 

23. The late Abbott Lawrence, that merchant prince and 
public benefactor, and late United States Minister to the 
Court of St. James, was asked, before he died, what had 
occasioned the great increase in wealth and prosperity in 
the United States ? He instantly replied : "Our prosperity, 
in my opinion, is greatly owing to the Temperance Refor- 
mation. The influence of this movement is felt in the 
work-shop, on the farm, and in every branch of human in- 
dustry. Before the Temperance Reform was started, a 
vast number of the farms in New England were mortgaged 
for rum bills, — now hardly one." 

24. Until the subject of Temperance was agitated, the 
frauds of the liquor traffic were not suspected. All liquors 
were supposed to be what they pretended to be. Now the 
matter of adulteration, though but partially understood yet, 
is the theme of common conversation even among drinkers. 

25. When the Temperance Reform commenced in this 
State there were about 1100 flour mills, and more than that 
number of distilleries. The population has about doubled 
since that time, and now there are 1 464 flour mills and only 
88 distilleries. It must be admitted, however, that the 



APPENDIX. 337 

distilleries now in operation are on a much larger scale 
than the average of those of the former period. 

CLASSES OF DEALERS WHO HAVE LEFT THE TRAFFIC. 

26. Of the great number of native citizens in the United 
States who used to sell intoxicating liquor.-:, a Fast number 
have left the business. The Temperance agitation has edu- 
cated them to regard the traffic as immoral and degrac 

It is found in the great cities that seven out of eight of all 
who sell liquor are foreign emigrants. The great majority 
of those who now sell liquor in America are a proof, not 
that the Temperance Reform does nothing, but of what 
the moral sense of our countrymen would have been on this 
subject, at this time, had this Reform never been agitated. 

27. Formerly, church members and church officers of all 
our churches used to be engaged in the traffic ; now, vast 
bodies of them denounce the traffic as an immorality ; and 
the number of church members, American born citizens, 
who make or sell liquor, is probably not one to five hundred 
of the former proportion. 

28. Witness, as a proof of the effects of the Temper- 
ance Reform, the growing idea that liquor when offered for 
sale, as a beverage, is a nuisance to be abated like any 
other nuisance. 

29. What but the Temperance agitation has changed 
the policy of so many States ; substituting laws aiming at 
Prohibition, in the place of laws which allowed rum to be 
sold by the authority of the State ! 

PROHIBITION 7 APPLIED TO THE DRUNKARD 

30. Not only is the moderation theory now abandoned, 
and Total Abstinence held to be essential to the reforma- 



338 APPENDIX. 

tion of the drunkard, bat Physicians,* Clergymen and 
Judges agree that Asylums should be established by the 
State for the resort of inebriates, where no strong drinks 
can be procured — which, as far as the drunkard is concern- 
ed ( of whom there are over 50,000 in the State of New- 
York), is an emphatic endorsement of the humanity and 
necessity of prohibition. The advocates of Temperance ex- 
tend the same principle, and by a general enactment, pro- 
hibiting the sale of liquors throughout the State, aim to re- 
move the temptation from all who have this habit partially 
formed, as well as those who have it fully formed, and so, 
by the united influence of moral and legal suasion, aim to 
create such an asylum in every household in the land. 

These facts and illustrations might be greatly extended, 
but I forbear. Enough has been said to indicate a vast 
improvement in the drinking usages of society. 

THE NEXT STEP IN THE REFORM. 

But it will be said, if the Temperance agitation has done 
so much, why not go right on in the old way, without a re- 
sort to legislation. The same question might be asked of 
gambling, of lotteries and of dueling. A stage is at last 
reached, where legislative enactments are essential. Not that 
moral suasion is to be abandoned, but, in addition to this, the 
public sentiment regarding these evils must be embodied into 
statutory enactments. Of this, those who have used moral 
suasion most, and with the greatest success, are the most 



* The following resolution was adopted by the Medical Society of 
the State of New York, on the 4th of February, 1817 : 

"Resolved, That this Society commend the object sought to be at- 
tained by the project for an Asylum for Inebriates, to the favor and 
earnest support, not only of the Legislature of the State but to the 
public at large." 



APPENDIX. 339 

profoundly convinced. After obtaining millions of signatures 
to the Total Abstinence Pledge, Ireland was ripe for Pro- 
hibition. But it was not applied. The golden opportunity 
was lost ; and the consequence is, that nearly as much liquor 
is drank in Ireland now, as before Father Mathew com- 
menced his remarkable labors. The language of this be- 
loved and renowned Apostle of Temperance, penned a 
year or two before his death, and published in the Prohi- 
bitionist for July, 1855, should teach a solemn lesson to 
the world on the subject of Temperance : 
i " The question of prohibiting the sale of ardent spirits, 
and the many other intoxicating drinks which are to be 
found in our country, is not new to me ; the principle of 
Prohibition seems to me to be the only safe and certain rem- 
edy for the evils of Intemperance. This opinion has been 
strengthened and confirmed, by the hard labor of more than 
twenty years in the Temperance cause. I rejoice in the 
welcome intelligence of the formation of a Maine Law 
Alliance, which I trust will be the means under God of 
destroying this fruitful source of Crime and Pauperism." 
The friends of Prohibition in Great Britain are now 
making up for lost time ; they are pressing on steadily, 
firmly and perseveringly, and the triumph of Prohibition 
is only a question of time. 

OUGHT NOT EVERY GOOD MAN TO COOPERATE? 

When the Temperance Societies began, the general view 
of religious men was, that the work should be done through 
the churches. I submit that, in the main, what has been 
done, has been done by the churches. The Temperance 
Reform originated in the churches. If I may refer to myself 
in this connection, it was a devout and learned minister of 
the Gospel who converted me to the movement. If, since 



340 APPENDIX. 

that time, I have been enabled to do more in my way than 
some of my fellow citizens, it is only because Providence has 
placed me in circumstances to do so. But it is the fervent, 
effectual prayer of the righteous, and the widow's mite, 
offered in faith, which points to the secret of the success of 
Temperance. Nor can I ever review the history of this 
benign and arduous enterprise without being deeply and 
profoundly penetrated with the conviction, that the great 
motive power, from the first and always, has been the 
Grace and Spirit of Almighty God, as shed abroad in the 
hearts of thousands of His pious servants, both men and 
women, and who are to be found in all religious denomi- 
nations throughout the Christian world. 

It is the religious sentiment of the country; it is the 
divine principle of self-denial, taught by our blessed Saviour, 
which has wrought whatever has been done for this reform, 
and which I have ever regarded as the handmaid of Religion. 
There are good men who still think (his work should be 
restricted to the churches, or perhaps to their own particular 
church. I put it to their hearts, would they go back to 
where we were thirty years ago ? Yv^ould they have undone 
what has been done ? And ought not every believer in 
Christianity, to whatever particular church he may belong, 
to unite as one man — in pressing forward with yet greater 
vigor, with the united energy of faith and prayer and works, 
by his example, his influence, and by contributions of his 
substance — the cause of personal Abstinence and legislative 
Prohibition'/ And if this is true of the Christain in private 
life, how important to the poor drunkard, to his wife, his 
children, and the whole community, do such duties become, 
when, as in the case of your Excellency, the private citizen is, 
clothed by the people with great authority and official power ! 
So sacred and important are the interests at stake, and so 
great is now'your Excellency's influence for good, that! feel 



APPENDIX. 341 

good, that I feel that I have not exceeded the privilege of 
your humblest fellow-citizen in attempting to enlist your 
personal and official cooperation on the side of a cause 
which has been so signally approved and blessed of God, 
and which redounds so palpably to the physical, the moral 
and the religious interests of the human family. 

I remain, with great respect, your Excellency's friend 
and obedient servant, 

EDWARD C. DELAVAN, 
President New- York State Temperance Society. 



ADULTERATION OF LIQUORS. 

Since the foregoing Lectures were written, in one of 
which the adulteration of liquors was exposed, that nefari- 
ous practice has made prodigious strides, and it has been 
thought desirable that the later developments of this great 
fraud upon the American people and the world should find 
a place in this work, and President Nott has suggested 
that we add some extracts, bearing upon this point, from 
the address of E. C. Delavan, made at the meeting of 
the New- York State Temperance Society, at the Capitol, 
Albany, 16th June, 1857. 

"I have long known the fact that arsenic was employed in 
the manufacture of whiskey, and the reason why. Ever since 
the year 1833, I have been aware of the horrid adultera- 
tions that have been practiced in the manufacture of alco- 
holic drinks, rendering the same, by the addition of intense 
poisons, still more injurious to property, virtue, reason and 



342 APPENDIX. 

life, of which I have never from that year ceased warning 
the public. My facts have been, in all cases, obtained 
from the manufacturers themselves, generally after they 
have abandoned the murderous business. The profit made 
has been enormous. In one case an individual engaged in 
the manufacture and sale, assured me that his sales in a 
single year amounted to 33,000 barrels, the average cost to 
him being about, eighteen cents per gallon, while he sold it 
at a rate varying from fifty cents to live dollars the gallon. 

"I have not known until recently of the use of that 
deadly poison* strychnine, in the manufacture of whiskey. 
This is described as endowed with a greater amount of de- 
structive energy than any other poison except prussic acid* 
One-third of a grain killed a hog in ten minutes. It first 
produces agitation and trembling; these run into a general 
spasm, in which the head is bent back, the spine stiffened, 
the limbs extended and rigid, and the respiration interrupted 
by the fixing of the chest. So powerful are the spasms, 
that the body sometimes retains, for some hours after 
death, the attitude and expression impressed on it by their 
terrible action during life. 

"This fearfully destructive agent is used for the same 
purpose as arsenic, and is, to a great extent, a substitute for 
it, the great object being the largest amount of whiskey 
cut of the least quantity of grain; and whether it kills 
men, hogs or fishes, it makes but little difference with the 
distiller, so long as he can accumulate a fortune by its sale. 
" I quote from an article recently published in the Tribune: 

" ( The use of strychnine in the manufacture of whiskey is hence- 
forth to be punished as a felony in Ohio. By means of this drug, 
used in connection with tobacco, sharp distillers were making five 
gallons of whiskey from one bushel of grain, whereas the quantity 
obtained by the old process was but half so much. The topers never 



APPENDIX. 343 

complained of the new liquid, but swallowed all they could get, and 
then smacked their lips for more ; but the hogs, not being so case- 
hardened, could not stand it, and died off by hundreds of what is 
called " Hog Cholera." The fish too, in the rivers into which the refuse 
of the distilleries was drained, began to die off in shoals; and a 
chemist reported that a barrel of this strichnine whiskey contained 
poison enough to kill twenty men. (So does a barrel of any whiskey, 
if administered to produce that result.) Ohio could not bear to have 
the quality of her poison distrusted, and so has made the use of strych- 
nine, in whiskey, a state prison offence. Making the whiskey without 
strychnine is not even declared a misdemeanor as yet. 

w W.e all know that whiskey is the basis of the wine, brandy 
and gin now sold in the country, whether imported or do- 
mestic, the grape having in a great measure failed in wine 
producing countries. The demand for wines having in- 
creased, the resort has been to the distillery and poisonous 
preparations, to supply its place. And so the grains of the 
earth, which God designed for food, are laid under contri- 
bution for its production. Ohio, the great grain-producing 
state, answers the call, and her distillers worm it through 
their thousand distilleries. But they are not content to fur- 
nish the pure alcoholic poison. They call upon tile druggist, 
and by means of strychnine and the decoction of tobacco, 
double the effect, by thus doubling the poison. This abom- 
inable compound is exported abroad, but is soon returned 
with such ingredients as foreign ingenuity can devise, and 
after paying duties abroad as whiskey, and at home under the 
names of wine and brandy, is sold at enormous profit, and 
drank by all classes. So extensively was adulteration prac- 
ticed in France, that the Rev. Dr. Baird stated that cer- 
tain persons appointed by government to test the purity of 
liquors by tasting, were compelled to resign, to escape from 
death by poisoning. And yet these are the pure wines and 
brandies that circulate so freely through the higher circles, 

Nott, 



344 APPENDIX. 

the only evidence of their purity consisting in the extrava- 
gant prices charged and paid for them. 

" But the useless formality of sending across the ocean 
often dispensed with, There exists ingenuity on this as 
well as on the other side of the water. This same Ohio 
whiskey is purchased in New-York and other large cities, 
where it is easily transformed into imported liquors, and sold 
as such often with the brands of the most celebrated dealers. 

So alarmingly extensive is the evil becoming, that the 
political press of all parties is sending out its voice of warn- 
ing ; and, in no measured terms, condemning and denouncing 
this wholesale poisoning of the people by the makers and 
vendors of these abominable compounds. We rejoice to see 
these evidences of moral life in the political press ; we hail 
them as proofs that it is still mindful of its duty as a senti- 
nel on the outposts of danger. We welcome it as a co-worker 
with us in this moral reform ; for there clearly can be no 
perfect escape from these poisonous compounds, except in 
the adoption and enforcement of the prohibitory principle. 

" I have called your attention to these enormous evils, 
now becoming so generally known and acknowledged, for 
the purpose of showing what kind of substances our legis- 
lature have legalized the sale of by the license law. 

" It must be apparent to all that there is but one mode of 
escape, that of total abstinence, succeeded by prohibition. 
It is idle to waste time or thought upon any half and half 
measure. 

" But while dwelling upon these adulterations and their 
enormity, we ought not to forget that alcohol itself, in these 
liquors, is an active poison, and that the other poison added, 
only render the compound the more poisonous. Our war- 
fare commenced against alcohol alone ; we supposed all 
liquors pure, but that their very purity was poisonous as a 
beverage. 



APPENDIX. 345 

All medical works pronounce alcohol itself a poison, and, 
like others, dangerous to health and life. The dark array of 
adulterations and poisonous compounds have come in since, 
but they have come only to stimulate us to stronger efforts 
and more determined perse verence to free the state and 
the nation from this monstrous iniquity ; and in view of 
these horrid adulterations, and the miseries they are inflicting 
upon us — demoralizing the people, as well as rapidly deterio- 
rating our race — should not all, of whatever denomination of 
Christians, or whatever party, having the love of God or man 
in their hearts, arouse themselves and unite with us in our 
efforts to arrest and finally eradicate this great and growing 
evil ? The question of the rightfulness of using pure intoxi- 
cating liquors as a beverage should no longer be a barrier — 
for none such, with the least degree of certainty, can be had." 



ADDRESS ON THE DRINKING USAGES OF 

SOCIETY. 

BY A. POTTER, D. D., LL. D., 

Bishop of the Diocese of Pennsylvania, 

V\ r B have assembled, ladies and gentlemen, to contribute our 
aid in arresting a great and crying evil. We do not aim to 
promote directly that Temperance which forms one of the 
noblest and most comprehensive of the Christian virtues. 
Our simple object is to prevent drunkenness, with its legion 
of ills, by drying up the principle sources, from which it flows. 
To one of these sources and that the most active and 
powerful, I propose to ask your attention this evening. The 
occasion, I need not say, is a most worthy one ; one that 
merits the warmest sympathy and support of every patriot 
and philanthropist, of every follower of Jesus Christ. 



346 APPENDIX. 

For what is intemperance, and what the extent and magni- 
tude of its evils ? Of these we all know something. We all 
know how it diseases the body ; how it disturbs the equili- 
brium of the intellect ;how it poisons the springs of gen erous 
affection in the heart, and lays a ruthless hand upon the 
whole moral and spiritual nature. What drunkenness does 
to its poor victim, and to those who are bouud to him by 
the closest ties, you all know. All know, did I say ? Let 
us thank God that few of you can know, or are likely to 
know, the inexpressible horrors which fill the soul of the 
inebriate, or the gloom and anguish of heart which are the 
portion of his family, You know enough, however, to feel 
that where this sin enters, there a blight falls on happiness, 
virtue and even hope. Look at the palpable shame and 
misery and gilt which collect within and about one drunk- 
ard's home ; and then multiply their dreadful sum by the 
whole number of such homes which, at this moment, can be 
found in this Christian city, and you will have an accumula- 
tion of sin and sorrow, even at your doors, which no mortal 
arithmetic can gauge, but which is sufficient to appall the 
stoutest heart and move to sympathy the coldest charity. 

But whence does this vast and hiclious evil come 1 To 
you as a jury of inquest, standing over the victims it strikes 
down, I appeal for a verdict according to truth and evidence. 
Can it be said that they who are now cold in death, with a 
drunkard's shame branded on their memory, "died by visi- 
tation of God 1 " God sends no such curse even upon the 
guiltiest of his creatures. He may send pestilence and 
earthquake ; he may send blasting and mildew ; but he 
commissions no moral plague, like drunkenness, to carry 
desolation to the souls as well as bodies of men. This evil, 
alas ! is self-invoked and self-inflicted. 

And how ? Do men rush deliberately, and with full pur- 
pose of heart, into such an abyss ? Is there any one so lost 



APPENDIX. 347 

to self-respect, to all prudence and duty, so devoid of every 
finer instinct and sentiment of our nature, that he can wil- 
lingly sink down to the ignominy and the wo that are the 
drunkard's portion 1 I tell you nay. Every human being 
recoils, with involuntary horror and disgust, from the con- 
templation of such a fate. He shrinks from it as he would 
from the foul embraces of a serpent, and feels that he would 
sooner sacrifice everything than take his place beside the 
bloated and degraded beings who seem dead to all that is 
noble in our nature or hopeful in our lot. These are victims 
that have gone blindfold to their fate. Gentle is the decliv- 
ity, smooth and noiseless the descent, which conducts them, 
step by step, along the treacherous way, till suddenly there 
feet slide, and they find themselves plunging over the 
awful precipice. 

And what is that deceitful road 1 Or which is the perfidi- 
ous guide who stands ever ready to turn aside the feet of the 
unwary traveler ? Here, ladies and gentlemen, is the great 
question. To arrest an evil effectually, we must know its 
nature and cause. It is idle to lop off branches, while the 
trunk stands firm and full of life. It is idle to destroy 
noxious leaves of flowers., while the plant still pours forth 
its malignant humors at the' root. If we would go to the 
bottom of this evil, if we would lay the axe to the very root 
of the baleful tree, we must see how and whence it is that 
unsuspecting multitudes are thus ensnared, never scenting 
danger till they begin to taste of death. 

It will be admitted, I presume, by all who hear me, that, 
if there were no temperate drinking, there would be none 
that is intemperate. Men do not begin by what is usually 
called immoderate indulgences, but by that which they 
regard as moderate. Gradually and insensibly their draughts 
are increased, until the functions of life are permanently 
disturbed, the system becomes inflamed, and there is that 

NOTT. 



.; 



34S APPENDIX. 

morbid appetite which will hardly brook restraint, and the 
indulgence of which is sottish intemperance. Let it be 
remembered, then, that what is usually styled temperate 
drinking, stands as the condition precedent of that which 
is intemperate. Discontinue one and the other becomes, 
impossible. 

But what is the cause of moderate or temperate drinking ] 
Is it the force of natural appetite ? Rarely. Nine-tenths, if 
not ninety -nine hundredths, of those who use alcoholic stimu- 
lants, do it, in the first instance, and often for a long time, 
not from appetite, but from deference to custom or fashion. 
Usage has associated intoxicating drinks with good fellow- 
ship — with offices of hospitality and friendship. However 
false and dangerous such an association may be, it is not sur- 
prising that, when once established, it continually gathered 
strength ; with some through appetite, with others through 
interest. It is in this way that what we term Drinking 
Usages have become incorporated with every pursuit in life, 
with the tastes and habits of every grade and class of society. 
In the drawing-room and dining-room of the affluent, in the 
public room of the hotel, in every place of refreshment, in 
the social gatherings of the poor, in the harvest field and the 
workshop, alcoholic liquor was &t one time deemed essential. 
Too often it is deemed so still. Many a host and employer, 
many a young companion, shrinks even now from the idea 
of exchanging the kind offices of life without the aid of 
intoxicating liquors, as he would shrink from some sore 
offence against taste and propriety. Not to put the cup to 
your neighbor's lip, in one word, is to sin against that most 
absolute of earthly sovereigns, fashion. 

Here, then, lies the gist of the whole difficulty. Fashion 
propagates itself downward. Established and upheld by the 
more refined and opulent, it is soon caught up by those in 
less conspicuous walks. It thus spreads itself over the whole 



APPENDIX. 349 

fuce of society, and, becoming allied with other principles, is 
planted deep in the habits and associations of a people. It 
is preeminently so with drinking usages. Immemorial cus- 
tom ; the example of those whose education or position gives 
them a commanding sway over the opinions and practice of 
others ; appetite, with them who have drunk till w T hat was 
once but compliance with usage, is now an imperious crav- 
ing ; the interest of many, who thrive by the traffic in intox- 
icating drinks, or by the follies into which they betray 
men — here are causes which so fortify and strengthen these 
usages, that they seem to defy all change. Bat let us not 
despair. We address those who are walling to think, and 
who are accustomed to bring every question to the stern 
test of utility and duty. To these, then, we appeal. 

Drinking usages are the chief cause of intemperance ; and 
these usages derive their force and authority, in the first 
instance, wholly from those who give law to fashion. Let this 
be considered. Do you ask for the treacherous guide, who 
with winning smiles and honeyed accents, leads men forward 
from one degree of indulgence to another, till they are besot- 
ted and lost ? Seek him not in the purlieus of the low grog- 
shop ; seek him not in any scenes of coarse and vulgar 
revelry. He is to be found where they meet who are the 
observed of all observers. There, in the abodes of the rich 
and admired; there, midst all the enchantments of luxury 
and elegance; where friend pledges friend ; where w 7 ine is 
invoked to lend new animation to gaiety and impart new 
brilliancy to wit ; in the sparkling glass, which is raised even 
by the hand of beautiful and lovely women, there is the most 
dangerous decoy. Can that be unsafe which is thus associ- 
ated with all that is fair and graceful in woman, with all that 
is attractive and brilliant in man ? Must not that be proper 
and even obligatory, which has the deliberate and time- 



350 APPENDIX. 

honored sanction of those who stand before the world as the 
" glass of fashion,'' and " rose of the fair state I " 

Thus reason the groat proportion of men. They are look- 
ing continually to those who, in their estimation, are more 
favored of fortune or more accomplished in mind and man- 
ners. We do not regulate our watches more carefully or 
more universally by the town clock, than do nine-tenths of 
mankind take their tone from the residue, who occupy places 
towards which all are struggling. 

Let the responsibility of these drinking usages be put, 
then, where it justly belongs. When you visit, on some 
errand of mercy, the abodes of the poor and afflicted ; when 
you look in on some home which lias been made dark by 
drunkenness, — where hearts are desolate and hearths are 
cold; where want is breaking in as an armed man ; where 
the wife is heart-broken or debased, and children are fast 
demoralizing; where little can be heard but ribaldry, blas- 
phemy and obscenity, — friends ! would you connect effect 
with cause, and trace this hideous monster back to its true 
parent, let your thoughts fly away to some abode of wealth 
and refinement, where conviviality reigns ; where, amidst 
joyous greetings and friendly protestations, and merry 
shouts, the flowing bowl goes round ; and there you will see 
that which is sure to make drinking every where attractive, 
and which, in doing so, never fails, and cannot fail, to make 
d r u n ke nness c o m m o n . 

Would we settle our account, then, with the drinki 
usages of the refined and respectable ? We must hold them 
answerable for maintaining corresponding usages in other 
classes of society ; and we must hold them answerable, fur- 
ther, for the fright ful amount of intemperance which results 
from those usages. We must hold them accountable for all 
the sin, and all the unhappiness, and all the pinching poverty, 
and all the nefarious crimes to which intemperance gives 



APPENDIX. 351 

rise. So long as these usages maintain their place among 
the respectable, so long will drinking and drunkenness 

abound through ail grades and conditions of life* Neither 
the power of law aimed at the traffic in liquors, nor the force 
of argument addressed to the understandings and conscien- 
ces of the many, will ever prevail to cast out the fiend 
drunkenness, so long as they who are esteemed the favored 
few uphold with unyielding hand, the practice of drinking. 

Hence, the question, whether this monster evil shall be 
abated, resolves itself always into another question ; and 
that is : will the educated, the wealthy, the respectable, 
persist in sustaining the usages which produce it? Let 
them resolve that these usages shall no longer have their 
countenance, and their insidious power is broken. Let 
them resolve that, wherever they go, the empty wineglass 
shall proclaim their silent protest ; and fashion, which now 
commands us to drink, shall soon command us, with all- 
potential voice, to abstain. 

Now, what is there in these usages to entitle them to 
the patronage of the wise and good ? Are they necessary ? 
Are they safe or useful ? 

Unless they can show some offset to the vast amount of 
evil which they occasion, they ought surely to be ruled out 
of court. But is any one prepared to maintain that these 
Drinking Usages are necessary — that it is necessary, or 
even useful, that men should use intoxicating liquors as a 
beverage? Do they add vigor to muscle, or strength to 
intellect, or warmth to the heart, or rectitude to the con- 
science ? The experience of thousands, or even millions, 
has answered this question. In almost every age and quar- 
ter of the world, but especially within the last twenty-five 
years, and in our own land, many have made trial of entire 
abstinence from all that can intoxicate. How few of them 
will confess that they have suffered from it, either in health 



352 APPENDIX. 

of body, or elasticity of spirits, or energy and activity of 
mind ? How many will testify that in each of these respects 
they were sensible gainers from the time they renounced 
the use of all alcoholic stimulants ! 

But, if neither useful or necessary, can it be contended that 
these drinking customs are harmless ? Are they not expen- 
sive ? Many a moderate drinker, did he reckon up accurately 
the cost of this indulgence, would discover that it forms one 
of his heaviest burdens. No taxes, says Franklin, are so 
oppressive* as those which men levy on themselves. Appe- 
cite and fashion, vanity and ostentation, constitute our most 
rapacious tax-gatherers. It is computed by Mr. Porter, an 
English statistician of distinguished ability, but of no special 
interest in the subject which we are now discussing, that the 
laboring people of Great Britain, exclusive of the middle or 
higher classes, expend no less than .€53,000,000 ($250,000,- 
000) every year on alcoholic liquors and tobacco ! There is 
little doubt that the amount directlv or indirectly consumed 



* r * My companion at the press," says Franklin, speaking of his life 
as a journeyman printer in London, 4t drank every day a pint before 
breakfast, a pint at breakfast, with his bread and cheese, a pint be- 
tween breakfast and dinner, a pint, at dinner, a pint in the afternoon 
about six o'clock, and another when he had done his day's work. 
I thought it a detestable custom ; but it, was necessary, he supposed, 
to drink strong beer, that he might be strong to labor. I endeavored 
to convince him that the bodily strength afforded by beer could only 
be in proportion to the grain or flour dissolved in the water of which 
it was made ; that there was more flour in a pennyworth of bread ; 
and, therefore, if he could eat that with a pint of water, it would 
give him more strength than a quart of beer. He drank on, however, 
and had four or five shillings to pay out of his wages every Saturday 
night for that vile liquor, — an expense which I was free from; and 
thus, these poor devils keep tliemselves always under. — See Dr. Frank- 
tin's Life, writte?i by himself 



APPENDIX. 353 

in Pennsylvania* annually for the same indulgence equals 
$10, 000,000, — a sum which, could it be saved for four suc- 
cessive years, would pay the debt which now hangs like an 
incubus on the energies of the Commonwealth. In wasting 
$250,000,000 every year the laboring population of Britain 
put. it beyond the power of any government to avert from 
multitudes of them the misery of want. Were but a tithe 
of that sum wrenched from the hands of the toil worn laborer, 
and buried in the Thames or the ocean, we should all regard 
it as an act of stupendous folly and guilt. Yet it were in- 
finitely better that such a sum should be cast into the depths 
of the sea, than that it should be expended in a way which 
must debauch the morals, and destroy the health, and lay 
waste the personal and domestic happiness of thousands. If 
the question be narrow T ed down to one of mere material 
wealthy no policy can be more suicidal than that which up- 
holds usages, the inevitable effect of which is to paralyze 
the productive powers of a people, and to derange the proper 
and natural distribution of property. Remember, then, he 
who sustains these usages sustains the most prolific source 
of improvidence and want. He makes, at the same time, 
an inroad upon his own personal income, which is but a 
loan from God. entrusted to him for his own and others' good. 
But these drinking usages are not only expensive ; they 
are unreasonable. What is their practical effect ? It is that 
others shall decide for us a question, which ought most 
clearly to be referred only to our own taste and sense of 
duty. We are to drink, whether it be agreeable to us or 



* In western Pennsylvania, one of the most valuable products is 
bituminous coal. Great quantities are sent down the Ohio, and are paid 
for in whiskey. I was informed by a distinguished citizen of that part 
of the state, that every year shows a balance against the producers of 
coal, and in favor of the distillers ! 



354 APPENDIX. 

not ; whether we think it right or not ; whether we think it 
safe or not. Moreover — and this is sufficiently humiliating 
— we are to drink precisely when and precisely where others 
prescribe. It has been said that, in some parts of our coun- 
try, a man must either drink with a man who invites him, or 
fight. It is not long since, in every part of it, one must 
either drink, when invited, or incur the frowns and jeers of 
those who claimed to be arbiters of propriety. And, even 
now, he or she who will not drink at all, or will drink only 
when their own reason and inclination bid, must not be sur- 
prised if they provoke invective or ridicule. And is a 
bondage like this to be upheld % Does it become free born 
Americans, who boast so much of liberty, to bow down 
their necks to a servitude so unrelenting, and yet so absurd ? 
A German nobleman once paid a visit to Great Britain, 
when the practice of toasting and drinking healths was at its 
height. Wherever he went, during a six months' tour, he 
found himself obliged to drink, though never so loth. He must 
pledge his host and his hostess. He must drink with every 
one who would be civil to him, and with every one, too, who 
wished a convenient pretext for taking another glass. He 
must drink a bumper in honor of the king and queen, in 
honor of church and state, in honor of the army and navy. 
How often did he find himself retiring with throbbing 
temples and burning cheek from these scenes of intrusive 
hospitality ! At length bis visit drew to a close ; and to 
requite, in some measure, the attention which had been 
lavished upon him, he made a grand entertainment. As- 
sembling those who had done him honor, he gathered them 
round a most sumptuous banquet, and feasted them to their 
utmost content. The tables were then cleared. Servants 
entered with two enormous hams ; one was placed at each 
end ; slices were cut and passed round to each guest, when 
the host rose, and with all gravitv said : " Gentlemen, I give 



APPENDIX. 355 

you the king! please eat to his honor" His guests pro- 
-d. They had dined; they were Jews; they were 
already surcharged through his too generous cheer. But he 
was inflexible. " Gentlemen," said he, " for six months you 
have compelled me to drink at your bidding. Is it too much 
that you should now cat at mine ! I have been submissive : 
why should you not follow my example ? You will please do 
honor to your king ! You shall then be served with another 
slice in honor of the queen, another to the prosperity of the 
royal family, and so on to the end of the chapter.'" 

But, waving the absurdity and costliness of these usages, 
let me ask if they are safe. Xo one who drinks can be per- 
fectly certain that he may not die a drunkard. Numbers, 
which defy all computation, have gone this road, who were 
once as self-confident as any of us can be. Xo one, again, 
who drinks, can be certain that he may not, in some 
unguarded hour, fall into a debauch, in which he shall com- 
mit some error or perpetrate some crime that will follow 
him, with shame and sorrow, all his days. How many a 
young man, by one such indiscretion, has cast a cloud over 
all his prospects for life ! You have read Shakspeare's 
"Othello," the most finished and perfect, perhaps, of all his 
tragedies. TVhat is it but a solemn Temperance lecture ? 
Whence come all the horrors that cluster round the closing 
scenes of that awful and magnificent drama ? Is it not from 
the wine with which Iago plied Cassio ? What is Iago him- 
self but a human embodiment of the Grand Master of Evil ? 
And, as that Master goes abroad over the earth seeking 
whom he may destroy, where does he find a more potent 
instrument than the treacherous wine cup ? This dark 
tragedy, with its crimes and sorrows, is but an epitome, a 
faint transcript, of ten thousand tragedies which are all the 
time enacting on the theatre of our daily life. How many 
are there at this moment, who, from the depths of agonized 

NOTT. 



356 APPENDIX. 

and remorseful hearts can echo the words of Othello's sobered 
but almost frenzied lieutenant, " thou invisible spirit 
of wine ! if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee 
devil ! " " That men should put an enemy in their mouths 
to steal away their brains ! That we should, with joy, pleas- 
ance, reveal and applause, transform ourselves into beasts !" 
u Oh! I have lost my reputation ! I have lost the immortal 
part of myself, and what remains is bestial, — my reputation, 
Iago, my reputation ! " " To be now a sensible man, by and 
by a fool, and presently a beast ! strange ! Every inordi- 
nate cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil." In 
this land, and in our day, there are few cups which for the 
young and excitable, are not " inordinate." Wines that are 
charged high with brandy, or brewed in the distillery of 
some remorseless fabricator, are never safe. Among wine 
proverbs, there are two which are now more than ever signi- 
ficant of truth : " The most voluptuous of assassins is the 
bottle;" " Bacchus has drowned more than Neptune." 

It is not the opinion of " temperance fanatics " merely, 
that adjudges drinking to be hazardous. It is so in their 
estimation, who are close, practical observers and actors in 
life. Mr. Jefferson is said to have expressed his conviction 
— the result of long and various experience — that no man 
should be intrusted with office who drank. I have now 
before me evidence, still more definite, in the two-fold system 
of rates proposed to be applied in one of our largest cities 
by the same life insurance company. The one set of rates 
is adapted to those who use intoxicating liquors ; the other, 
to those who do not use them at all. Suppose that you wish 
your life to be assured to the extent of $1000, and that you 
are twenty years of age. If you practice total abstinence, 
the rate will be $11.60 per annum ; if you use intoxicating 
drinks, it will be $14.70. At twenty-five years of age, the 
rates will be as $13.30 to $17 ; at thirty years of age, as 



APPENDIX. 357 

$15.40 to $19.60. I have also before me the returns of two 
beneficial societies, in one of which the principle of total ab- 
stinence from all intoxicating liquors was observed, while in 
the other it was not. The result has been that, with the 
same number of members in each, the deaths in one, during a 
given period, were but seventy-seven ; whereas, in the other, 
they were one hundred and ten ! making the chances of life 
as ten to seven in their favor who practice total abstinence- 
This result need not so much astonish us, when we are told, 
on the authority of persons who are said to have made care- 
ful and conscientious inquiry, that, of all males who use in- 
toxicating liquors, one in thirteen becomes intemperate. 

Here, then, are results reached by men of business, when 
engaged in a mere calculation of probabilities. Drinking, 
according to their estimates, is hazardous — hazardous to 
life and property, hazardous to reputation and virtue. Is it 
not wise, then, to shun that hazard ? Is it not our duty ? 
Is not this a case in which the Saviour's injunction applies : 
" If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from 
thee ; if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from 
thee ; for it is better for thee that one of thy meinbers should 
perish, than that thy whole body shouldbe cast into hell fire V 
We all consider it madness not to protect our children and 
ourselves against small-pox by vaccination ; and this, though 
the chances of dying by the disease may be but one in a 
thousand, or one in ten thousand. Drunkenness is a disease 
more loathsome and deadly even than small-pox. . Its 
approaches are still more stealthy ; and the specific against 
it — total abstinence — has never failed, and cannot fail. 

But let us admit for one moment, and for the sake of ar- 
gument (to admit it on other ground would be culpable) — 
let us admit that you can drink with safety to yourself 
Can you drink with safety to your neighbor ? Are you 
charged with no responsibility in respect to him ? You 



358 APPENDIX. 

drink, as you think, within the limits of safety. He, in im- 
itation of your example, drinks also, but passes that unseen, 
unknown line, within which, for him, safety lies. Is not 
your indulgence, then, a stumbling-block — ay, perchance, a 
fatal stumbling-block in his way ? Is it not, in principle, the 
very case contemplated by St. Paul, when he said : " It is 
good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything 
whereby thy brother stumbleth or is off ended, or is made weak? 19 
Yonder are the young and inexperienced, without habits of 
self-control, and with fiery appetites. Would you have them 
do as you do ? Yonder is one who is just on the verge of 
the precipice that w r ill plunge him into shame and wo unut- 
terable ; are you willing that he should find in your daily 
potations a specious apology for his own ? Or yonder ig one 
who is already a bondman to this fearful vice, but who feels 
his debasement, and would gladly be once more free ; will 
you do that in his presence which will discourage him from 
striking boldly for emancipation ? Nay, it may be that he is 
even now struggling bravely to be free. He has dashed away 
the cup of sorcery, and is practicing that which, to him, is 
the only alternative to ruin. Is it well, Christian — follower 
of Him who sought not his own, and went about doing good 
— is it well that from you should proceed an influence to 
press him back to his cups? — that you, by your example, 
should proclaim, that not to drink is to be over scrupulous 
and mean spirited ? — that at your table, in your drawing- 
room, he should encounter the fascination which he finds it 
so hard to withstand, so fatal to yield to ? 

Nineteen years ago, I knew an instructor who stood in 
relations most intimate to three hundred students of a college 
The disorders which occasionally invade such institutions, 
and the disgrace and ruin which are incurred by so many 
promising young men, result almost exclusively from the 
use of intoxicating liquors. This fact had so imprinted 



APPENDIX. 359 

itself on this instructor's mind, that be made a strenuous 
effort to induce the whole of this noble band to declare for 
that which was then considered the true principle — total 
abstinence from distilled spirits. Fermented stimulants were 
not included ; but it was pointedly intimated that intoxication 
on wine or beer would be a virtual violation of the engage 
ment. The whole number with perhaps two or three excep- 
tions, acquiesced ; and for a few months, the effect was most 
marked in the increased order of the institution and the 
improved bearing of its inmates. Soon, however, there were 
aberrations. Young men would resort occasionally to hotels, 
and drink champagne ; or they would indulge in beer at 
eating-houses. The evil which, at one time, seemed dammed 
out, was about to force itself back ; and the question arose, 
what could be done? Then that professor came to the con- 
clusion that, for these young men at least, there was no 
safety but in abstinence from all intoxicating liquors. He 
had often protested against including wine in the same cate- 
gory with ardent spirits. But the wine these young men 
drank was as fatal to them and to college discipline as rum ; 
and the simple alternative was between continued excesses, 
on the one hand, or total abstinence from all intoxicating 
beverage, on the other. Under such circumstances, this 
professor did not long hesitate. He determined to urge and 
exhort those for whose welfare he was so fearfully responsi- 
ble, to the only course which was safe for them. But there 
was one huge difficulty in his way. It was the bottle of Ma- 
deria which stood every day upon his own table. He felt that 
from behind that bottle, his plea in behalf of abstinence from 
all vinous potations would sound somewhat strangely. He 
was not ready to encounter the appeal from theory to prac- 
tice, which all are so prompt to make — none more prompt 
than the young — ■ when they deal with the teachers of 
unwholesome doctrine. He determined, therefore, ta prepare 



360 APPENDIX. 

himself for bis duty, by removing every hindrance which bis 
own example could place in the way of the impression which 
he was bent upon producing. Did he act well and wisely ? 
Ye fathers and mothers, who know with what pearls the 
young are encompassed when they go forth into the world; 
would you have advised him to cling to his wine ? Or you 
who may be about to commit a fiery and unstable son to a 
teacher's care and guidance, would you prefer that this 
teacher's example and influence should bvjbrmne drinking 
or against it ? 

But if, in your judgment, that professor stands acquitted 

— nay, if you actually applaud his course, what, permit me 
to ask, is your duty ? — yours, fathers and mothers! yours, 
sisters and brothers ! yours, employers and teachers ! There 
is not one of you but has influence over others, and that 
influence is much greater than you are apt to imagine. Is 
it not a sacred trust, which should never be abused ? O 
parents ! do you consider, as you ought, how closely your 
children observe all your ways, and how eagerly and reck- 
lessly they imitate them ? Employers ! do you estimate 
sufficiently your responsibility in regard to hirelings and 
domestic servants, who are prompt to adopt your habits and 
manners, but who seldom possess the self control which your, 
education and position constrain you to exercise? Your 
precepts, enjoining sobriety and moderation, pass for little. 
Your practice, giving color and countenance to self-indul- 
gence, sinks deep into their hearts. One hour spent by you 
in thoughtless conviviality may plant the seeds of sin and 
ruin in those by whom you are attended! And the crowd 
of wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, that I see before me, 

— do they always consider with what wizard power they rule 
over man's sterner nature ? It is our pride and privilege to 
defer to your sex. At all periods of life, and in all relations, 
you sneak with a voice which penetrates to our gentler and 



APPENDIX. 361 

nobler sentiments. Most of all is this the case when you 
burst into early womanhood, encompassed by bright hopes 
and fond hearts — when the Creator adorns you with graces 
and charms that draw towards you the dullest souls. Ah ! 
how little do you appreciate, then, the sway which, for weal 
or wo, you wield over those of our sex who are your com- 
panions and friends ! Is that sway always wise and holy ] 
Is it always on the side of temperance and self-command ] 
Alas ! alas ! could the grave give up its secrets, what tales 
of horror would it not reveal of woman's perverted influ- 
ence — of woman thoughtlessly leading man, through the 
intoxicating cup, to the brink of utter and hopeless ruin ! 
One case of the kind was mentioned to me lately. It is 
but one of many. 

A young man of no ordinary promise, unhappily con- 
tracted habits of intemperance. His excesses spread anguish 
and shame through a large and most respectable circle. The 
earnest and kind remonstrance of friends, however, at length 
led him to desist ; and feeling that for him to drink was to 
die, he came to the solemn resolution that he would abstain 
entirely for the rest of his days. Not long after, he was in- 
vited to dine, with other young persons, at the house of a 
friend. Friend ! did I say ? pardon me ; he could hardly be 
a friend who would deliberately place on the table before one 
lately so lost, now so marvelously redeemed, the treacherous 
instrument of his downfall. But it was so. The wine was 
in their feasts. He withstood the fascination however, until 
a young lady, whom he desired to please, challenged him to 
drink. He refused. With banter and ridicule she soon 
cheated him out of all his noble purposes, and her challenge 
was accepted. He no sooner drank than he felt that the 
demon was still alive, and that from temporary sleep he was 
now waking with tenfold strength. " Now," said he to a 
friend who sat next to him, " now I have tasted again, and I 



362 APPENDIX. 

drink till I die." The awful pledge was kept. Not ten 
days had passed before the ill-fated youth fell under the 
horrors of delirium tremens, and was borne to a grave of 
shame and dark despair. Who would envy the emotions 
with which that young lady, if not wholly dead-to duty and 
to pity, retraced her part in a scene of gaiety which smiled 
only to betray ? 

Let me not be misunderstood. I do not maintain that 
drinking wine is, in the language of the schools, sin per se. 
There may be circumstances under which to use intoxicating 
liquors is no crime. There have been times and places in 
which the only intoxicating beverage was light wine, and 
where habits of inebriation were all but unknown. But is 
that our easel Distillation has_filied our land with alcoholic 
stimulants of the most fiery and deleterious character. Our 
wines, in a large proportion of instances, are but spurious 
compounds without grape juice and with a large infusion of 
distilled spirits, and even of more unhealthy ingredients. As 
long ago as the days of Addison, we read in the Tatler 
(No. 131) that in London there was " a fraternity of chemi- 
cal operators, who worked under ground, in holes, caverns 
and dark retirement, to conceal their mysteries from the ob- 
servation of mankind. These subterranean philosophers are 
daily employed in the transmutation of liquors ; and, by the 
power of magical drops and incantations, raising under the 
streets of London the choicest products of the hills and valleys 
of France. They can squeeze claret out of the sloe, and draw 
champagne out of an apple." The practice of substituting 
these base counterfeits for wine extracted from the grape 
has become so prevalent in this country, that well-informed 
and conscientious persons aver that, for every gallon of wine 
imported from abroad, ten or more are manufactured at 
home. " Five and twenty years ago," says the late J. Fenni- 
more Cooper, " when I first visited Europe, I was astonished 



APPENDIX. 363 

to see wine drunk in tumblers. I did not at first understand 
that half of what I had been drinking at home was brandy 
under the name of wine." 

These adulterations and fabrications in the wine trade are 
not confined to our country or to England. They abound 
where the wine flourishes in greatest abundance. " Though 
the pure juice of the grape," says our eminent countryman, 
Horatio Greenough (the sculptor), can be furnished here (in 
Florence) for one cent a bottle, yet the retailers choose to 
gain a fraction of profit by the admission of water or drugs." 
He adds, " How far the destructive influence of wine, as 
here used, is to be ascribed to the grape, and how far it is 
augmented and aggravated by poisonous adulterations, it 
would be difficult to say." McMullen, a recent writer on 
wines, states that in France there are " extensive establish- 
ments ( existing at Cette and Marseilles ) for the manufacture 
of every description of wine, both white and red, to resemble 
the produce not only of France, but of all other wine coun- 
tries. It is no uncommon practice with speculators engaged 
in this trade to purchase and ship wines, fabricated in the 
places named, to other ports on the continent ; and, being 
branded and marked as genuine wines usually are, they are 
then transshipped to the markets for which they are design- 
ed, of which the United States is the chief. Such is the extent 
to which this traffic is carried, that one individual has been 
referred to in the French ports who has been in the habit of 
shipping, four times in the year, twenty thousand bottles of 
champagne, not the product of the grape, but fabricated in 
these wine factories. It is well known that the imposition 
of these counterfeit wines has arrived at such a pitch as to 
become quite notorious, and the subject of much complaint, 
in this country at least."* 

* McMullen on Wines, p. 172. 



364 APPENDIX. 

In the presence of facts like these, I ask, what is our duty 1 
Were nine out of ten of the coins or bank bills which circu- 
late, counterfeit, we should feel obliged to decline them al- 
together. Tv r e should sooner dispense entirely with such a 
medium of circulation, than incur the hazard which would 
be involved in using it. And, even if we could discriminate 
unerringly ourselves between the spurious and the genuine, 
we should still abstainer the sake of others, lest our example 
In taking such a medium at such a time, encourage fabrica- 
tors in their work of fraud, and lead the unwary and ignorant 
to become their victims. But, in such a case, abstinence 
would be practiced at great personal inconvenience. It \t 
not so with abstinence from intoxicating drinks. That can 
subject us to no inconvenience worthy to be compared with 
the personal immunity with which it invests us, and with 
the consoling consciousness that we are giving no encour- 
agement to fraud, and placing no stumbling block in the 
way of the weak and unwary. 

The question, then, is not what may have been proper in 
other days or in other lands, in the time of Pliny or of Paul, 
but what is 'proper notv, and in our own land. The apostle 
points us to a case in which to eat meat might cause one's 
brother to offend ; and his own magnanimous resolution, 
under such circumstances, he thus avows, " If meat make my 
brother to offend, I will eat no more while the world stands" 
Thus what may at one time be but a lawful and innocent 
liberty ,becomes at another a positive sin. The true question, 
'then — the only practical question for the Christian patriot 
and philanthropist — is this : "Intemperance abound ! Ought 
not my personal influence,whether by example or by precept, 
to be directed to its suppression ? Can it be suppressed 
while our present drinking usages continue % In a country 
where distilled liquors are so cheap and so abundant, and 
where the practice of adulterating every species of fermented 



APPENDIX. 305 

liquor abounds — in such a country can any practical and 
important distinction be made between different kinds of 
intoxicating liquors ? If abstinence is to be practiced at 
all, as a prudential or a charitable act, can it have much 
practical value unless it be abstinence from all that can 
intoxicate 1 " These questions are submitted, without fear, 
to the most deliberate and searching scrutiny. 

Ladies and gentlemen, I conclude. Neither your patience 
nor my own physical powers will permit me to prosecute 
this subject. I devoutly hope that, in the remarks which I 
have now submitted, I have offended against no law of cour- 
tesy or kindness. I wish to deal in no railing accusations, 
no wholesale denunciations. When Paul appeared before 
the licentious Felix, he reasoned, with him, we are told, of 
temperance. It is the only appeal that I desire to make. I 
might invoke your passions or your prejudices ; but they 
are unworthy instruments, which he will be slow to use 
who respects himself; and they are instruments which gene- 
rally recoil with violence on the cause that employs them. 
There is enough in this cause to approve itself to the highest 
reason and to the most upright conscience. Let us not be 
weary, then, in calling them to our aid. If we are earnest, 
and yet patient ; if we speak the truth in love, and yet speak 
it with all perseverance and all faithfulness, it must at length 
prevail. But few years have passed since some of us, who are 
now ardent in this good work, were as ignorant or sceptical 
as those whom we are most anxious to convince. We then 
thought ourselves conscientious in our doubts, or even in 
our opposition. Let our charity be broad enough to con- 
cede to those who are not yet with us the same generous 
construction of motives which we then claimed for our- 
selves. And let us resolve that, if this noble cause be not 
advanced, it shall be through no fault of ours ; that our 
zeal and our discretion shall go hand in hand ; and that 



366 APPENDIX. 

fervent prayer £o God shall join with stern and indomitable 
effort to secure for it a triumph alike peaceful and permanent. 
It was a glorious consciousness which enabled St. Paul, 
when about to take leave of those amongst whom he had 
gone preaching the kingdom of God, to say, " I take you to 
record this day that I am pure from the blood of all men.'' 
May this consciousness be ours, my friends, in respect, at 
least, to the blood of drunkards ! May not one drop of the 
blood of their ruined souls be found at last spotting our 
garments ! Are we ministers of Christ ? Are we servants 
and followers of Him who taught that it is more blessed to 
give than to receive ? Let us see to it that no blood guilti- 
ness attaches to us here. We can take a course which will 
embolden us to challenge the closest inspection of our in- 
fluence as it respects intemperance ; which will enable us 
to enter without fear, on this ground at least, the presence 
of our Judge. May no false scruples, then, no fear of man 
which bringeth a snare, no sordid spirit of self-indulgence, 
no unrelenting and unreasoning prejudice deter us from 
doing that over which we can not fail to rejoice when we 
come to stand before the Son of Man ! 



FROM PREFACE ON THE USE AND ABUSE OF 
ALCOHOLIC LIQUORS IN HEALTH AND 

DISEASE, 

BY WM. B. CARPENTER, M. D., F. R. S., F. G. S. 

A fair trial has been given, both in this country and in the 
United States, to societies which advocated the principle of 
Temper ance>w\&. which enlisted in their support a large num- 
ber of intelligent and influential men ; but it has been found 
that little good has been effected by them among the classes 
on whom it was most desirable that their influence should be 



APPENDIX. 307 

exerted, except where those who were induced to join them 
really adopted the total abstinence principle. Though the 
author agrees fully with those who maintain that, £/" all the 
world would be really temperate, there would be no need of 
total abstinence societies, the author cannot adopt the infer- 
ence, that those who desire to promote the temperance cause 
may legitimately rest satisfied with this measure of advocacy. 
For sad experience has shown that a large proportion of 
mankind cannot, partly for want of the self-restraint which 
proceeds from moral and religious culture, be temperate in 
the use of alcoholic liquors; and that the reformation of 
those who have acquired habits of intemperance cannot be ac- 
complished by any means short of entire abstinence from 
fermented liquors. Further, experience has shown that in 
the present dearth, of effectual education among the masses, 
and with the existing temptations to intemperance arising 
out of the force of example, the almost compulsory drinking 
usages of numerous trades, and the encouragement which in 
various ways is given to the abuse of alcoholic liquors, noth- 
ing short of total abstinence can prevent the continuance, in 
the rising generation, of the terrible evils which we have at 
present to deplore. And, lastly, experience has also proved 
that this reformation cannot be carried to its required extent 
without the cooperation of the educated classes, and that 
their influence can only be effectually exerted by example. 
There is no case in which the superiority of example over 
mere precept is more decided and obvious than it is in this. 
" I practice total abstinence myself," is found to be worth a 
thousand exhortations ; and the lamentable failure of the ad- 
vocates who cannot employ this argument should lead all 
those whose position calls upon them to exert their influ- 
ence, to a serious consideration of the claims which their 
duty to society should set up in opposition to their individ- 
ual feelings of taste or comfort. 
Nott. 



36S APPENDIX. 

Among the most oommon objections brought against the 
advocate of the total abstinenoe prinoiple is the following: 
"That the abuse of a thing good in itself does not afford a 
valid argument against the right use of It." This objection 
lias been so well met by the late Archdeaoon Jeffreys, of 
Bombay (in a letter to the Bombay Courier), that, as it is 
one peculiarly likely to occur to the mind of bis medioal 
readers, the author thinks it desirable to quote a part of his 
rcplv. " The truth is," lie says, " that the adage is only 

true under certain general limitations : and ilia lout el* these, 

so far from being true, it is utterly false, and a misohievous 
fallacy. And the limitations are these : [fit be found by ex 
perienoe that, in the general praotioe of the times in which 

We live, the abuse is only the solitary exception, whereas the 
right use is the general rule, so that the whole amount o( 

good resulting from its righl useexoeeds the whole amount of 
evil resulting from its partial abuse, then the article in ques- 
tion, whatever it he, is fully entitled to the benefit of the ad- 
age ; and it, would not he the ahsoluteaud imperative duty o( 

the Christian to give it up on account of its partial abuse. This 

is preoiselythe position in which stand all the gifts ofProv- 
idenoe ami all the enjoyments of life ; for there is not one of 

them which the wickedness o\' man dorx not more or less 
abuse. Hut, on the other hand, it' ii he found by experience 4 

that there is something so deceitful and ensnaring in the 
artiole itself, or something so peculiarly untoward connected 

with the use of it in the present age, that the whole amount, 
of crime and misery and wretchedness connected with lhe 

abuse o( it greatly exceeds the whole amount o( benefit aris- 
ing from the right use o\' it, then the argument becomes a mis- 
ohievous fallacy ; tin* article in question is not entitled to the 

benefit of i(, ami it becomes the duty id' every v;ood man to 

get rid of it." After alluding io the evidem e that this is 
preeminently the case with regard to alcoholic liquors, the 



APPENDIX. 369 

Archdeacon continues: " We have, then, established our 
prinoiple in opposition to the philosophic adage ; takingthe 
duty of the oitizen and the patriot even on the lowest ground. 
But < Ihristian self-denial and ( Ihristian love, and charity go 
far beyond this. St. Paul accounted one single soul so 
precious that he would on no account allow himself in any 
indulgence that tended to endanger a brother's soul : * if 
meal, make, my brother to oifr.ud, I wdl eat no meat while 
the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend.' ' It 
I ood neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything 
whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made 
weak. 1 And we must hear in mind that flesh and wine are 
here mentioned by Paul as 'good creatures of God ;' they 
arc not intended to designate things evil in themselves. 
This saying of St. Paul is the charter of teetotalism ; and 
will remain the charter of our noble cause so long as the 
world endures — so long as there remains a single heart to love 
and revere this declaration of the holy self-denying Paul." 

I f, then, the author should suoceed in convincing his read- 
ers that the" moderate" habitual use ofalcoholio liquors is 
not beneficial to the healthy human system ; still more if 
they should be led to agree with him, that it is likely to be 
injurious — hetruststhat they will feel called upon, by the 
foregoing considerations, to advocate dm principle, of total 

abstinence, in whatever manner they may individually deem 
most likely to be effectual. He believes it to be in the power 
of the clerical ami medical professions combined so to influ- 
ence the opinion, and practice of the. educated classes as to 
promote the spread of this principle among the "masses 1 to a 

degree which no other agency can. effect. And he ventures to 
hope that, whether or not he carries his readers with him to 

the full extent of his own conclusions, he will, at any rale, 
have succeeded in convincing them that so much, is to he said 
on his side of the question, that it can no longer be a matter 



370 APPENDIX. 

of indifference what view is to be taken of it ; and that, as 
" universal experience" has been put decidedly in the wrong 
with regard to many of the supposed virtues of alcohol, it is, 
at any rate, possible that its other attributes rest on no better 
foundation. In his general view of the case, he has the 
satisfaction of finding himself supported by the recorded 
opinion of a large body of his professional brethren ; upwards 
of two thousand of whom, in all grades and degrees, from the 
court physicians and leading metropolitan surgeons, who are 
conversant with the wants of the upper ranks of society, to 
the humble country practitioner, who is familiar with the 
requirements of the artisan in his workshop and the laborer 
in the field, have signed the following certificate : 

" We, the undersigned, are of opinion, 

11 1. That a very large proportion of human misery, including 
poverty, disease and crime, is induced by the use of alcoholic or 
fermented liquors as beverages. 

''2. That the most perfect health is compatible with total absti- 
nence from all such intoxicating beverages, whether in the form of 
ardent spirits, or as wine, beer, ale, porter, cider, &c. 

" 3. That persons accustomed to such drinks may, with perfect 
safety, discontinue them entirely, either at once, or gradually after a 
short time. 

" 4. That total and universal abstinence from alcoholic beverages 
of all sorts would greatly contribute to the health, the prosperity, the 
morality and the happiness of the human race." 

No medical man, therefore, can any longer plead the 
singularity of the total abstinence creed as an excuse for his 
non-recognition of it ; and, although a certain amount of 
moral courage may be needed for the advocacy and the 
practice of it, yet this is an attribute in which the author 
cannot for a moment believe his brethren to be deficient. 
Judging from his own experience, indeed, he may say that 
he has found much less difficulty in the course he has taken 
than he anticipated when he determined on it and that he 



APPENDIX. 371 

has met with a cordial recognition of its propriety, not merely 
on the part of those who participated in his opinions but did 
not feel called upon to act up to them in there individual 
cases, but also among others who dissented strongly from his 
scientific conclusions, and who consequently had no more 

sympathy with his principles than with his practice. 
16* 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 

027 279 811 4 1 






ffis 1 

9<l 



■■H 


il 1 'I!!'!;! III jl| i if' < i i i i|i i| 


VlP /Jfivtt!' mil ! 


i i 1 1 II ii \Wt\ ! II ■ i i j !l 




iSM 


n-^*s Vii' t '*it**S 


■ilWWW 



